Karma
by remesy
Summary: AU Zoro/Sanji In Roronoa Zoro's life, all he had known was to be an assassin, to kill without any human emotions. In one of his usual missions, he was tracked and taken down by two people. When he wakes up, he finds himself inside the home of a shitty blond cook, who helps him be a human once more by teaching him how to love.
1. Chapter 1

**About:** Hello everyone, I know you haven't heard from me for awhile. College have been driving me into a corner. I know I have not finished "Elucidation" yet, but I promise you that it's getting fixed up and I will be writing new chapters for it soon. This story has been in my mind for awhile now, and I finally mustered up enough courage to write it.

Little note~ I recall Kaku speaking like an old man, so I tried to make his speech a little off.

* * *

 _You might ask me why I live this life and truth be told, I don't know either._

Jumping from roof to roof, the wind whispered into his ears. Indecipherable noises they were, but distracting simultaneously. Their soft conversations clouded his mind and cleansed him of any guilt in his heart. There were also sounds of jingles in his left ear, echos from his three golden earrings clinking against one another. By his waist, his three swords felt heavy. Perhaps it was because of another burden he was about to put them through.

His right foot made a soft contact against the blue tinted roof. His lungs were filled with the chilly night air, and when he exhaled, the contrasts of temperature created a wisp of vapor from his mouth.

He sensed few strangers below and nearby, laughing and conversing, oblivious to the savagery of this world. Even few lovers who were senselessly drowning in the mix of sweat and passion.

He felt a streak of envy, for he had no one meaningful by his side.

His long nosed partner landed right next him. "Tonight, you aren't getting lost," his partner mused. In a way Kaku was a weird guy. If anyone saw him in the middle of the street, they would automatically assume that he's normal. A sheep in the flock. Perhaps someone cheerful and friendly.

"Approximately a minute left before our target arrives in a black limousine, guarded by two heavily equipped bodyguards." Kaku smiled innocently while cocking his pistol into gear.

So much for a normal guy.

Zoro, as well, prepared for the upcoming fight. He gracefully extracted his three swords, placed two into his hands and one in his mouth.

As expectantly, Kaku's estimations were one hundred percent correct. The limousine pulled over in front of a shady strip club within a minute. Three males exited, all wearing straightened suits. But it was an obvious guess to know which one was their real target. A short man, roughly about 5"3', wore a fancier suit than the two giants by his side. And as a further proof, the employees of the stripped club, wearing striped red and white uniforms directed their welcoming gestures singly and directly at the short man.

"We should have met the limousine awhile back. We can't attack him now when he's in a strip club. Henceforth, we should change our plans. I prepared for us, just in case something like this would take place." Kaku told him as he pulled out two fancy suits of their own. "Now we just have to infiltrate the place and pull him out of there somehow."

The green haired man nodded in agreement, knowing that Kaku's plans usually execute without a fault.

In the midst of this freezing weather, the two males had to change out of their clothes to put on a more polished attire. Zoro placed his three swords in an elongated briefcase made out of cow leather, where there were durable straps that enabled Zoro to place the briefcase diagonally across his back.

"Are you ready?" Kaku questioned, pocketing the handgun into the inner flap of his gray jacket.

After executing numerous numbers of mission after missions, year after years, Zoro couldn't have been more than ready by now. His blood pumped clamorously in his ears and a mischievous grin stretched aligned with the lines of his chin.

"Let's go."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Excuse me, sirs. You cannot enter without paying." An employee in his striped red and white uniform daringly stopped Zoro and Kaku with his palms raised. "This club regulates a strict policy. We cannot just let anyone in here."

A dangerous look bypassed Kaku's eyes, and Zoro had to tap him to snap him back into reality.

"How much?" The swordsman asked while reaching for his pockets.

But the employee must have seen Kaku's expression because he abruptly drew back in fear. "Ah, I mean, please ignore what I previously said. Please go in, sirs, make an entrance to the right at the end of the hallway." His eyes were lit like a paralyzed deer that accidentally jumped in front of a speeding car, with Kaku being the driver.

Subtly, Zoro gave the employee a nod, which he had ignored completely, presumably because he didn't want to risk making another eye contact with Kaku. Understanding, Zoro just let him be.

A foul scent instantaneously filled his nostrils when he entered the building. The stench of sex: semen and sweat, mixed with an odd odor from the pipes. It was almost nauseating. The darkness that surrounded him only accentuated the fetid smell and encouraged him to speed up his pace.

When he made a turn at the end of the hallway, specifically to the right(with a bit of Kaku's help), an abrupt burst of cheers were loudly heard. He stepped inside the unexpectedly spacey room, with blinding lights blazing and loud dubstep music pumping in the background, and sweaty bodies constantly moving to the beat. A stage set in middle of the crowd, and a young woman seductively wrapping her leg around a pole. A wild cheer erupted from the crowd when she teasingly lowered one bra strap after the other. And those men who were close enough, threw their cash in heaps to the stripping brunette on stage, hoping she would notice them. Wild beasts they were, panting at the sight of a naked woman; howling and whistling to express their glee.

With a stoic expression, and appearing indifferent to his surroundings, Kaku approached the target without any hesitance.

The target was playing American poker, Texas Hold 'Em, with two blonde strippers by his side. With a thick cigar in his mouth, blowing out rings of smoke, he called out his bet. "Fifty dollars," he said in a heavy Italian accent.

The two other players called fold right after.

Kaku tipped his hat out of respect before speaking, "May I join you gentlemen in this fine game of poker?" he spoke with deeper tone of voice, conveying an air of polish and suavity, to fool these men into believing that he was much older than his actual age.

The target placed the cigar in between his index and middle finger, then lifted it from his mouth, before slurring his next words, "If you got cash, _boy_ , that's all it takes. It don't matter if you got skills or not. Who's that big lad behind you?" He pointed his cigar behind Kaku's shoulders.

Zoro stood tall and did not speak. He had enough experience with Kaku to know whose mouth was more reliable in tricky situations like these. As always, Kaku fabricated a bullshit story with a laugh, "My fiance is awfully careful about having a bodyguard by my side at all times. She's a real sweetheart, but a huge pain in the ass." He pulled up a seat and handed Zoro his hat. "This guy's a pain in the ass too, but gentle. You don't have to worry about him."

The group consisting of strippers and gangsters laughed alongside with Kaku, clearly pleased with his amiable nature.

The four males placed their chips in the middle, called out their first round of bets and received two cards each. Zoro hardly played poker, or any card games for that matter, but there were certain aspects of this game that he definitely understood. Such as, when everyone else except for Kaku groaned the first round, he knew who had won.

"Was that pure luck or skill, kid?" A bald man in thick rimmed sunglasses, sitting directly across from their target, asked Kaku.

His long nosed partner chuckled as he drew in all the chips from the middle, "I'll say both."

For the next few hours, the four men intensely focused on their game. Their skills were evenly matched, but Zoro sensed that Kaku was purposely losing from time to time. Because if Kaku really wanted to, he could rob all of these men of their money with no trouble.

Zoro tapped Kaku on the shoulder, "I'm going to take a leak."

Kaku didn't reply, he simply nodded. The way his eyes were analyzing his opponents' expressions told Zoro that he was calculating his next move.

Unlike Zoro, who was all muscle in the organization, Kaku contributed as the brain and muscle, which made him more of a valuable member than Zoro.

The restroom was as distasteful as this whole place. The white walls were no longer white, with blotches of piss smeared everywhere. The whole placed smelled wretched, like every single person forgot to flush the toilets after their usage. And the brown smudges that he was overstepping, he didn't even want to know what they were.

He just wanted few seconds of peace and quiet to himself while relieving his bladder.

"Fuck you. Do this right or you're gonna get a taste of my bloody kick, you piece of shit."

Of course some obnoxious bastard had to have a loudmouth.

Peace and quiet? Definitely not.

Zoro heaved a profound sigh. He couldn't even enjoy a second of tranquility without some douche screaming his head off. What was so damn important that this idiot had to run his mouth? What a terribly annoying voice he had. Who has a voice like that?

In between the dirty sink and the empty paper towel rack, there stood a tall man. One of his knees was bent and his foot was flat against the tiles behind him, creating a perfect thirty-five degree angle. In his hand, he was furiously punching in characters into his phone. How he was seeing the screen with that curtain of blond hair obstructing his sight was a damn mystery. He wore a black, double-breasted suit; with six gold buttons that had unique set of engravings, three on each side of his chest; inside the jacket, he wore a solid navy blue buttoned shirt with a black tie. Under his breath, he continued to whisper foul profanities while chewing on the filter of his cigarette.

Zoro walked past the aggravated blonde, uninterested in his little issues, but still peeved by his obnoxious commotions.

He chose the farthest urinal from the corner where the blond stood. By the time he was finished with his business, the blond had already left the restroom. Zoro took his time with washing his hands before returning to Kaku and his gambling business.

When he spotted the four men who were playing poker few minutes ago, he saw that they were standing up and preparing to leave. Zoro wondered what the hell Kaku was up to now and how in the hell he was going to pull through this one.

"Boy, do you wanna have a smoke with me?" Their target spoke directly to the long nosed man while holding up a fat blunt.

A clear invitation.

Zoro caught a sly smirk on Kaku's face before he broke out into a friendly grin. "I've actually been dying for one." He accepted the offered blunt and placed it in his mouth, quite like how the blond had, except Kaku wasn't angrily chewing on it. "Since my bodyguard hates the scent, why don't we light it up outside?" It was clearly a psychological method he was using. I don't bring my bodyguard and you don't bring yours. Simple.

"We're all taking our leave. Your bodyguard should stray off for awhile then." The target's two bodyguards were by his side again, appearing formidable as ever. "I'll make my bodyguards stray too, so don't worry with them intimidating you."

Kaku rubbed his forehead, chuckling as he faked a sigh of relief. "That's a damn weight off my shoulders. I thought they wouldn't stop glaring at me and Malvin over there," he said as he jerked his thumb over towards Zoro.

 _Who the hell is Malvin?_ Zoro twitched inwardly.

"Now, shoo, shoo," the target told the green haired man.

In that moment, Zoro had a vivid vision of how he was going to slice the target's neck, and how relieving that would feel.

By the time they were outside, Zoro was sent away to bond with the two bodyguards; and surprisingly, he had a nice conversation with them. Of course, nice enough to keep the conversation going before Kaku called him back.

"Code 4001, the target has been annihilated. Meet me back on the rooftop so we can dispose of the body. I already contacted the boss. Hurry back." His tone of speech was short and articulated, and it had already gone back to its monotonic manner.

Zoro ran down the streets, passing by few drunken pedestrians who were chatting up some unfortunate girls; even so, it was none of his business.

His nose stung from rapidly taking in and expelling the frigid air from his lungs repetitively. It felt like drinking icy water with a mint gum in your mouth.

But the main problem was, beside the terribly arctic temperature, some piece of shit thought it was a good idea to watch Zoro from afar, pointing his gun directly his way. On top of the roof of some Presbyterian church, facing East from where he stood, there was a sniper who watched the swordsman's every move through his scope.

He whispered to no one but mother nature herself, feeling a bit high and mighty, "I can kill you with my eyes closed," referring to the man who was about to pull the trigger.

Having been an assassin since he was a little boy, this keen sixth sense had only developed to its epitome over the years. Even if the man on the rooftop did pull the trigger, Zoro had enough confidence to dodge out of the way. After all, a swordsman was not made up of sheer power and skill but the spiritual connection to the world surrounding him. If a bullet was to pierce through the air, he had enough reliance of his reflexes to either deflect or evade.

What he did not expect was a voice behind him. A muffled tone and a disguised presence that Zoro was surprised to know about. "Well, let's see about that."

 _Shit!_

A strong force hit the side of his head, so unexpectedly fast that Zoro had absolutely no time to react.

The last thing he saw was the streetlight across the street on the other side of the sidewalk. The light had a tinge of orange and yellow. It blurred and expanded when his vision began muddle. And the last sound he heard was the bullet piercing through the air.

 _Guess I'm going to die,_ he thought before the left side of his head hit the ground. The dull thud of his body hitting the cement reverberated inside of his head before the blackness overcame his senses.


	2. Chapter 2

_Zoro..._

Who was that, he wondered. _Who was calling my name?_

 _Zoro, you're such an idiot..._

Ah, of course it was her. Who else could it be?

 _Zoro, wake up!_

His eyes shot open, and the first thing he heard was the voice from the radio. "I hope everybody is getting ready for Christmas because we just brought in all the holiday tunes from the nineties! Starting with "Jingle Bell Rock!" The cheery voice yelled, "Counting down, twenty days until Christmas everyone, enjoy!" Then a familiar melody started playing with the repetitive rhythm of bells in the back.

He was still bouncing in between that state of consciousness and reverie, and he just wanted to go back to sleep. But then, a delicious smell tickled his nose and his stomach growled in response, telling him to wake the hell up and get some food.

" _Fuck_ ," he groaned as he leisurely sat up.

There was a sharp pain congested in his right shoulder, and if he wasn't too careful, he knew the wound would open right back up. Zoro looked around and saw that he was in a spacey room, painted Prussian blue; on a navy blue bed with some sophisticated swirly patterns; surrounded by piled up books and paintings. He also realized that his shoulder was roughly bandaged and his attires were completely different than what he had wore before. _Kiss the cook,_ it said. Zoro had to raise an eyebrow at that. Now, why would Kaku put that shirt on him?

His stomach growled loudly again, demanding it to be filled.

 _What a bright time_

 _it's the right time_

 _To rock the night away_

Zoro sniffed the pleasant scent and followed it like a dog would. His bare feet felt the ruffles of the light beige carpet underneath as he dragged his indolent body out of the room. His shoulder ached, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. In fact, a bullet wound was less than a mosquito bite to him by now.

The living room was all sorts of colors, and the morning light only shone to make those colors brighter. And just like the bedroom, blue was the room's main component. A nice shade of blue that resembled the ocean, a shade that represented tranquility and placidity.

His head began to throb.

"Kaku," he called out before walking into the vast kitchen, rubbing his temple with his forefinger.

In his mind, all the puzzle pieces were starting to fit together. Someone had attacked him that night, and the bastard's partner shot him from a distance. Zoro blacked out, and while he was out, Kaku came into the picture and probably beat the shit out of those two. Now, he and Kaku were residing in some random hotel as always.

Sounds of chopping, pots boiling, frying pans stirring, alarms beeping.

 _Jingle around the clock_

Zoro walked in expecting perhaps some pancakes, not this grand luxury called food. And he certainly did not expect a blond man in a peach colored apron singing to himself while smoking a stick of nicotine, multitasking around the kitchen with a high level of proficiency. Delicately, yet with vigor, the blond shuffled a variety of ingredients into the giant crater that resembled both a frying pan and a pot.

He hummed the Christmas tune playing from the radio before acknowledging Zoro's presence.

 _That's the jingle bell_

 _That's the jingle bell rock_

In a velvety tone, the stranger asked, "You hungry?" He picked up a small remote control and pressed a button that turned off all the radios.

Zoro was surprised to hear that the strange blond had asked him such a general question. "Uh, yeah."

The stranger was easily recognizable. It was that annoying man from the bathroom, the one who was shouting his head off at some poor man on the other line. For some reason though, must be the apron, he didn't seem as hostile as he had that night. And speaking of _that night,_ millions of questions bubbled inside Zoro's head.

"Who are you?" The swordsman asked, slightly feeling dumbfounded by the blond's astounding cooking abilities.

 _How is he able to multitask like that?_

The stranger gritted his teeth, "That's what _I_ should be asking, shithead. How in the hell did you get shot like that?" He gracefully poured the content from the frying pot onto two plates.

Unconsciously, Zoro's hand reached for his wounded shoulder. "This?"

"Yeah." The blond handed Zoro a plate as he took a seat across from him, allowing them to talk face to face.

Zoro had a better view of the man feeding him. A pale complexion with a pinkish undertone, with sharp jawlines and straight teeth. He had a small goatee on his chin and a small brown peach fuzz above his lips. His golden bangs completely hid one of his clear blue orbs out of sight, and his eyebrows... they were, well, _curly?_

"Dunno. It was dark out and two dicks thought it would be a great idea to knock me out," Zoro answered the blond man while chewing his food, still wondering how one could have curled his brows.

The blond heaved a heavy sigh. "Okay." He crumpled the butt of his cigarette into an ashtray before proceeding. "So, let's start with the basics. What is your name?"

"You should always give your own name before asking for someone else's."

Zoro had already finished his plate because the food was so damn delicious from start to finish. He didn't know what he just ate or what they were even called, but everything on his plate was cooked and seasoned to perfection. "But since you gave me food and shelter, I'll let that slide. My name is Zoro Roronoa." Due to the fact that he and Kaku had been undercover for so long, his own name sounded foreign out of his mouth.

"Ah. My apologies," the stranger said before lighting up another cigarette, pushing his own plate forward. "You can have this, I'm full."

Zoro grinned boyishly, happy with the extra food given. "Thanks." He hadn't had good food in ages and this might top off everything he had ever eaten his entire life.

The blond waved that gratitude off, but in a fraction of a second, there was a hint of genuine satisfaction on his face.

"I'm Sanji. I found you in the middle of the night bleeding to death, so I took you to the nearby hospital to save your ass." Sanji grinned around the edges of his cigarette. "Just help out with some chores to compensate for my kindness. The doctors told me to watch out for your sorry ass until you're fully healed, so I guess you're stuck with me until then." Sanji's grin became a mischievous smirk. His lean fingers ran through his golden locks. "Nice to fucking meet you, Zoro Roronoa." As he said those words, his hands pulled away from the strands of his hair to offer a handshake to the swordsman.

 _What a foul mouth._ He gripped the blond's hand, half expecting it to be feminine, soft and lithe. But in actuality, his hand told a story of any other person who had gone through hard work; full of calluses and scars. "So you're saying that I can't leave until I'm completely healed?"

Sanji nodded. "Right."

Zoro was about to respond when his mind trailed off to a sudden realization. "Wait a minute... S _hit_ , do you know where my swords are?"

His three katanas... how could he have forgotten them? What if they were somewhere abandoned on the streets? Or perhaps someone took them with their filthy, worthless hands. Zoro felt his chest swell with distress. Two of those swords may be replaceable, but one of them was most definitely not. A mantra of cusses echoed inside his head until Sanji spoke up.

"You mean those?" The blond's visible eyebrow rose in perplexity. His thumb jerked in the direction of the living room, which was in plain sight from where they were sitting.

In the middle of the spacey room, there was a black couch; and on the black couch, amongst couple of clothes and books, Zoro's katanas were resting there. The swordsman released the air that had coiled at the pit of his stomach and instantaneously felt relief. He still didn't know who this cook was, but he had already saved Zoro about three times already.

"Thanks."

The cook seemed to be genuinely surprised by the green haired man's response. Perhaps he didn't realize how important those swords were to Zoro and that he had saved a part of the swordsman's essence as well as sanity. "No problem."

To break away from the awkward tension, the blond man stood up and gently dusted himself before going back to his kitchen chores.

Zoro watched the tall form from his peripheral vision and observed this man called 'Sanji' gracefully operating around his own place: washing and scrubbing the dishes; wrapping up any leftover ingredients; and placing all the kitchen supplies back into their usual places. It was strange to see another person in their familiar environment since he himself did not have a place called 'home'. But at the same time, this environment did not fit the title of being called 'home.' In fact, his initial instinct of thinking that this place being a hotel persisted.

So instinctively he asked, "Hey, is this where you live?"

Again, Sanji appeared surprised.

He wiped his hands on a dry rag hanging next to his head before he took out another cigarette to light. Zoro noted that this man was completely dependent on those tiny sticks. He went through them like a chimney, puffing one after another incessantly.

"How did you know that this isn't where I live?" Sanji's eyebrows tightly knitted with suspicion.

"Uh, intuition?" Zoro tried not to sound suspicious, though, there was nothing to be suspicious about.

Sanjis face was still full of suspicion but he decided to elaborate. "I take vacations here often because a good friend of mine runs multiple hotels and she lets me stay here for free every once in awhile. It's my little 'getaway,' you could say." He softly chuckled. "I usually come here when my job becomes too much for me to handle." His eyes became blank as if he was flipping through his memories. "I mean, being in the kitchen, it's like you're at war every single day struggling to get those orders out. It's so damn tiring." His expression softened again. "But when I come here to see the ocean, it's like I can get away from that part of my life."

Talking to this man was very easy. He was exceptionally social and smooth. The manner in which he talked reminded Zoro of Kaku, minus the killer psychopathic part.

"Hey, instead of coming here to take breaks, maybe you should create a life worth living," Zoro softly mumbled. But since it was a shamefully hypocritical remark, he asked the blond more questions. "So you're a chef?"

Sanji nodded pacifically before his expression contorted into one full of inquiries again. "Hey, can I ask you something?" His visible eye slanted a bit and his bottom lip drew forward.

The green haired assassin dreaded Sanji's questions. He could practically predict what they were going to be: _What do you do for living? What were you doing that night? Why didn't anyone search for you yet? Why-_

"Why do you have green hair?" The blond asked with all due seriousness.

A silence prolonged after the question had been spoken. There were sounds of the wind lashing at the windows, the lapping of the waves outside, and the individual dribbles of water from the faucet.

Zoro's face remained stoic.

"I mean, I used to have blond hair, like yours… until I had to undergo a surgery, and it messed with my genetics…" His gaze shifted to the ground.

Sanji appeared speechless, panic welling up in his eyes. "Uh, I didn't-, I-" He nervously fumbled with his cigarette and the cool look on his face dropped to the ground. "That was really insensitive, I guess."

The dumb expression on the blond's face was too hilarious. Zoro began to chuckle, clutching his own stomach."You should see your own face in the mirror." He laughed harder when Sanji's pale features turned bright red. "You look so stupid with your curly brows."

 _Curly brows..._

As soon as he said those taboo words, the blond snapped visibly. Crushing the cigarette in between his fingers, he stepped forward with a deadly facial expression. "Who are you calling _curly brow_ , you damn bastard!" His leg lashed out like a whip, hurdling at Zoro at an unbelievably fast pace.

Just in the nick of time, Zoro dodged the swiping leg that went past his head like a baseball bat swinging a fast ball. He thought ' _what the fuck_ ' in a low-pitched, slow, and dramatic tone of voice like they do in action movies _._ But unfortunately for Zoro, as soon as Sanji's active foot hit the floor, the other leg swung and the heel struck him square in the chest, making him stumble backwards and land on his ass with a heavy thump.

"Shit," Zoro spat out the oxygen that was taken out of him, his ass throbbing from the harsh impact against the cold kitchen floor.

Grinning lopsidedly above Zoro's lying figure, Sanji asked "Had enough?" in the most cocky manner while tilting his head to the side. " _Ah_ , wait." The blond stopped in the midst of his tracks. "Shit." He began to shake his head. "I wasn't supposed to..." Slowly, he extended his arm out to assist the green haired man whom he had just knocked down. "Here."

Zoro boorishly stared at the hand offered to him and decidedly ignored it.

He was pissed off, as expected, but at the same time he was amused. No one, not even Kaku, has been able to knock him off his feet at a one-on-one combat match for about nine years now. Even as a young adult, Zoro was very proficient with swords and martial arts. There were only very few who could meet up to his standards and last for a couple of minutes. Those techniques the blond performed, it was _different_ ; powerful yet so graceful, like a dancer who had developed his fighting techniques along with his ballet steps. But again, imagining the blond in tights, dancing around in colorful tutus did _not_ suit the image Zoro was going for.

It _did_ , however, make him want to rile up the blond a bit more.

"Save the fake kindness, curly. You caught me when I least expected it." Zoro patted himself down as he stood up, on both feet simultaneously with the help of his upper body strength. "I just didn't think you could _actually_ kick," Zoro retorted with bite behind every word.

He was so eager to fight this man.

"Oho, so you think you can beat me in a fight?" His head tilting to the side again.

Zoro blinked.

How many years has it been since he last heard those challenging words that pushed him over the edge? His blood pumped in his ears and the excitement coursed through his veins. Screw formalities. Zoro wanted to see who was stronger. He wanted to pounce on the blond man and see what else the cook could do with his legs.

 _I want more! More!_ The little mischievous boy inside him screamed with delight.

"Crap, hold that thought!" Sanji shouted.

His arms went behind his back, impatiently tugging at the knot of his apron. He abandoned his crumpled peach colored apron on the kitchen table and without any further explanation he stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Zoro alone and confused.

"What the hell, cook!" The green haired man called out, a bit embarrassed for being indirectly rejected of their fight.

With a pout, Zoro shoved his hands into the pockets of his gray sweats that he woke up with. He dragged himself around the table, out of the kitchen, then into the living room where his swords were.

He noticed unfinished paintings clustered in the corners of the room and how none of them did any justice to the actual scenery he was seeing outside. The breathtaking view of the ocean glimmering underneath the gaze of the sun, which was almost peaking to its climax, was one of the most beautiful things nature exhibited. He was starting to figure out why this place was the blond's little 'getaway'. Everything was so relaxing. Though the place was messy, it felt homey. The scenery was something Zoro would like to last see before going into the trance of his meditation.

Sanji stormed out of the bedroom with a polka-dotted blue shirt that was half buttoned, a black dress pants with a belt that was only half way through the loops of the pants, and his fingers were still adjusting the black tie around his neck. "Mosshead, get dressed," the blond ordered before rushing into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Who are you calling mosshead!" Zoro called out angrily, stomping his foot like a child.

"I put your clothes on top of my bed! Just change into those!" His muffled tone shouted from the bathroom.

A tiny part of the swordsman wanted to rebel against the blond's demands like a teenager who was going through a 'stage', but another part of him knew it would be a futile attempt.

Zoro strolled down the hallway and entered the bedroom he woke up from. He carefully stepped around the piles of books and paintings and made his way to the bed where his black dress shirt and pants were. The ones he wore during his mission. Out of habit he messily threw the clothes that he peeled off of his body on top of the bed along with the crinkled blankets that he slept in. He then pulled on the clothes that smelled of detergent and flowers, unlike the night of his mission when his clothes had the scent of alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat from the strip club. His shoulder that was roughly patched aggravated him a bit so he was careful with how he pulled the shirt over his head.

Being alone, with no curly brow as a distraction, his thoughts roamed around freely. He wondered what happened to Kaku, or rather, what Kaku believed happened to Zoro. Did he believe that Zoro had died? If so, what was he going to do now? Sanji clearly offered the swordsman to remain with him until his shoulder is healed. But afterward, where would he go? If the organization truly believed that he was dead, there would be no need for him to go back. However, if they find any evidence that he's actually not dead then he would be tracked down and killed. Zoro is a very capable swordsman who is able to take down most of his opponents, but this organization has a variety of millions of capable fighter. If Zoro was marked, he knew he would be screwed to hell.

"Are you done changing?" Sanji asked while barging inside, holding a comb in his hand. The blond was in a suit, but unlike Zoro who still appeared to be a bodyguard even without a body to protect, he appeared rather casual.

"Yeah. Where are we going?"

Sanji sat on the bed and stretched his legs out in front of him. "We're going to take the train to my house. It's about thirty minutes from here." He told Zoro as he stretched out a cellphone in front of him. "Here, you can call whomever. I don't want to _kidnap_ you, not that I would want to."

"Right."

Zoro observed the little android and slicked the screen over with his palm, simply staring at it.

"You're not going to call anyone?" Sanji questioned.

The thing was, Zoro had no one to call. He had no one at 'home' who would worry if he did go missing. He didn't have any friends who would randomly check up on him. He didn't even have a goddamn decent job that would worry if he went missing or not. So, who would he call? Zoro simply handed the cellphone back.

The blond didn't press the matter, which Zoro was thankful for. He _really_ did not feel like explaining himself.

"Alright. Let's go, Zoro."

The blond grabbed the black wallet that was resting on top of the wooden dresser and put them into the outer layer of his jacket pocket. He was heavily layered and well dressed, like those men on fashion magazines. A polka-dotted blue shirt, layered with a vest, waistcoat, and a jacket, which had the same color as his trousers; black. This guy could literally walk into an investment company and no one would suspect a thing because his garments were formal enough; but at the same time, he could walk into a bar, have a couple of drinks and dance with girls, so that someone lucky enough could take apart those layers one by one that night.

Zoro shook his head.

There was no reason for him to observe the blond _that_ intensely. He grabbed his swords, held it in his hands next to his waist, and the two were off.

"Oi, why are you in such a hurry?" He asked when Sanji was pacing in front of him, anxiously waiting for the elevator to come all the way up to the 32nd floor.

Sanji turned towards him with a hint of glimmer in his eyes. "Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you. I'm cooking for a group of friends tonight. I have to go grocery shopping, prepare, and other shit..." He trailed off, placing a finger on his soft lips.

The swordsman wondered why this person was so carefree. Was he that confident enough of his abilities that if Zoro did happen to turn out to be some ruthless murderer, he could take him on? Why was he allowing Zoro, a complete stranger, into his house and introducing him to his group of friends?

"What do you like to eat?" Sanji asked when the two were in the silent confinement of the elevator.

"I don't know. Anything."

The blond pouted and withdrew his hands into the warmth of his pockets. In addition to this disappointed look, a hint of irritation could be seen. He exasperated, "There has to be something. Come on! Anything off the top of your head will do."

"I don't know. I like Japanese food."

"You do?"

The two men walked outside into the chilly air that nipped at any exposed skin, speedily pacing along side by side. "I'm actually not that familiar with Japanese cuisine. I know how to make some simple dishes like rice balls-"

"'I love rice balls," Zoro interrupted the man, reminiscing his childhood memories.

"You do?"

The swordsman rolled his eyes, "Che, you said that twice already." He glimpsed over to his side to measure the blond's reaction to his words.

Surprisingly, this time Sanji did not blow up; instead, he shyly scratched his head and tried to fix the blond hair the wind was rustling. How absolutely unpredictable his responses were. One minute he was throwing a fit like a child would, and the next he was acting like a reasonable person.

"Is your shoulder okay?" He asked, pointing at Zoro's shoulder that was buried underneath the layers of clothes.

"Yeah"

"I tried to follow the doctor's advice and follow the patterns of bandaging, but it was my first time and you were asleep, so it came out shitty." When he spoke, warm air escaped from his mouth; and at times, Zoro noticed, he would casually lick his lips to moisten them. "You bled so much, I'm wondering how you're still fucking alive to be honest."

Zoro smirked from that comment. He did have a stubborn streak against the face of death. "How long have I been sleep anyways?"

The blond furrowed his brows towards Zoro, "Like four days top, I think."

"What the hell. That long? No wonder I was starving when I woke up this morning."

Sanji cooed, "Aw, and here I was thinking that my delicious cooking scent was the Prince Charming to your Snow White."

"I think your shitty Christmas music had more of a punch than your cooking."

The cook rolled his eyes. "Hey, stick it up your yours, man." He glanced over to Zoro's side. "By the way, wouldn't you get arrested for having swords outside?"

"Yeah, probably." Zoro was holding two swords in his right hand, in between him and the blond, and the third one in his other hand. "I have a long case for it but it's probably lost somewhere."

Sanji groaned. "I still can't believe how indifferent you are from being shot. Any normal person would have shitted their pants by now and locked themselves in their houses."

The subway was in sight. There were some stores like Dunkin' Donuts, Frankie's hair stylist, and CVS nearby. A person in a microfiber hooded jacket was standing outside, blocking the entryway to the train, trying to pass out fliers to passing by strangers. Most ignored him and continued their way. But as Sanji walked past the man, he grabbed a paper and murmured a 'thanks' under his breath.

"Huh, a dental healthcare."

 _Strange..._

The dissonances of the city submerged and were replaced with the sounds of engines of trains when the two slowly entered underground. A musky smell welcomed them into the tunnels and few bums were seen, sleeping, facing away from any sympathetic passerby's. And the blond who conveniently had two metrocards, swiped them both in, which Zoro was thankful for— again.

"I'm still wondering why you're so damn nice to me. You have to have some ulterior motive behind all of this," Zoro said while the two waited for the train, squinting his eyes a bit.

"What?" Sanji screeched before bubbling with laughter. "If you think knocking you off your feet was nice, then you lived some fucked up life."

Zoro had to snort at that. How fucked up was his life that he can't even tell the difference between a stranger's kindness from his own suspicions. " _I'm telling you_ , that was pure luck. I can beat your ass with my eyes closed."

"Yeah, whatever. Didn't take you to be a _sore loser._ "

"I'm not a-"

His voice was extinguished by the train. A door, one out of many, came to a halt in front of them and the two doors slid open. Inside the train, it was semi-crowded. Most people were sitting down but a group of teenage girls were standing by the two sliding doors that they stood in front of.

"-sore loser," The green haired man finished, but the blond's attention had already been hampered with by the sight of these young girls. He was no longer paying any attention to Zoro's comments.

The door slid closed behind them.

While the blond made his way over to the girls, Zoro went further in to grab onto one of the silver poles. " _Ah, my fair flowers_ , you are young yet _so_ beautiful. It _must_ be fate that we _happened_ to be on the same train at the same time. We are only _bound_ to exchange our numbers before continuing with our lonely days." The blond had this pained expression on his face as he melodramatically performed these lines, throwing his hands up in the air.

 _Talk about a bad Shakespeare._

Zoro cringed inside with embarrassment, something that Sanji was apparently immune to. Not only were the three girls giggling in hilarity but few others surrounding them were as well. He strolled away from the blond and casually made his way to the next silver pole, which was halfway across the cart. He could no longer hear the conversation of the group, but from what he was seeing, the girls were smiling and waving their hands in front of them shyly as if rejecting Sanji's requests; as a result, Sanji scratched his head sheepishly and bowed his head before making his way back to the swordsman.

"Yo," Sanji greeted him casually.

"What was that?" The green haired man asked the man, noting that some people were eavesdropping to their conversation.

In a monotonic tone he snapped, "Picking up chicks, what else?" He was grinding his teeth, presumably a form of habit from having a cigarette in his mouth at all times.

Zoro snorted before mumbling, " _That's_ picking up chicks?"

He didn't know much about picking up chicks himself, nor has he ever been interested in the opposite sex enough to throw himself at them, but he was a hundred percent sure that he would've done a more effective job than the blond had.

Sanji was quick to jump and defend his man pride, which Zoro shut down immediately with his sarcastic remarks.

The rest of the train ride consisted of arguments and serious conversations about why Zoro should always guard his food around Sanji's friends. "This little guy eats like an elephant, I'm telling you. I don't even know where it all goes. One minute he's kind of bloated around the waist and then _boom_ , it all disappears." It was kind of comedic to see the blond all serious about a silly topic like this. "One time-" His next words were cut off and soon forgotten.

"Excuse me?"

The two men were interrupted by the group of girls that Sanji had flirted with half an hour ago. Sanji's expression turned into a composed one— with a soft, welcoming smile at the tips of his lips. "What can I do for you, lovely ladies? Perhaps, you're here to take me up on my offer?" He was awfully suave for someone who acted like a total fool before.

The girls giggled, more so _at_ the blond than as a response. Then they began shooting curious glances toward Zoro.

 _Uh oh..._

"Hey, you should go ask right now," a brunette whispered, lightly urging her friend forward.

A pretty girl with jet black hair and natural rosy cheeks thrusted a paper in front of her, shyly murmuring, "Here is my number." She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. "I like your green hair."

 _Crap..._

"Uh... Thanks..."

She waved to him before her and her friends exited the train. "Call her!" The brunette yelled, looking over her shoulder before the doors slid shut. When the train began to move, a heavy silence and the sounds of the engine were the only things that remained. Zoro looked over to his side to see what the blond had to say about all of this.

As expected, Sanji was glaring at Zoro with a pout, like a pitiful dog on a rainy day. "Damn you..."

"I wasn't expecting that."

Sanji shoved his hands into his pockets before turning his head away, away from Zoro and toward the windows where the lights shone. Since the train traveled above ground level, they could see the buildings of New York City stretched out far and beyond. "Of course you weren't, lucky mosshead." He was still pouting, his bottom lip sticking forward.

 _Huh._ Zoro stared at how the blond was pouting, eyes avoiding, and hands tucked inside his pockets. _Kind of... cute..._

Wait, wait, _what?_ Oh, _hell_ no. Zoro frowned, wrinkling his forehead. _What?_ He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. What the hell?

"Let's get off," Sanji told him, tugging his shirt, pulling him out into the fresh air. The blond shuddered as his teeth clenched, "Ugh, so cold. Damn you, mother nature."

He was right. It _was_ cold. _Damn_ , was it cold.

But Zoro's face was hot as hell and he just didn't know why.


	3. Chapter 3

"It's not much, but make yourself at home."

 _Is this guy serious?_

When the doors swung open, it revealed a very stylish designing of the living-dining room, which connected to the kitchen. The basic colors of black and white were the main components of the room; but there were also colorful accents, bold colors that enhanced the overall impact of simplicity that made this place so modern. There were no unnecessary decorations or paintings that made the room appear cluttered or messy, and the furniture's were kept to a minimum. One white couch with black and white cushions on top, a sleek coffee table with a book on top, a polished cabinet, and a large flat screen TV above those cabinets.

Sanji threw his keys on top of the coffee table and his jacket to rest on one of the sofa arms. "I should start cooking."

The green haired man was still in shock.

The open space in here felt incredible, and perhaps it was an illusion created by the plain designing of the interior, but the only thing that ran through Zoro's mind was how this space could easily turn into a training room.

"Oi, earth to mosshead, why are you just staring at the house like that? Don't tell me you have a secret passion to be an interior designer or something?"

The blond chuckled as he began walking across the living-dining room, heading for the kitchen that had a completely different atmosphere. The kitchen was made up of dark brown cabinetry with the grain of the wood peeking through, rich brown wood floors, marble island counters, a mosaic tile backsplash above the stoves, and rows of gray bar stools lined up aligned with the counter.

 _It's not much, but make yourself at home._ Those words replayed inside the swordsman's head.

"Shitty cook, don't mock me," he mumbled.

"Huh, what? What did you say?" Sanji asked, already in the kitchen, typing an apron around his waist. "I can't hear you. Come closer."

"Nothing." Zoro withdrew his previous comment. "I just said that you're a _shitty cook_ , that's all." Smirk at the end, taunting the blond from across the room, elbow leaning against the couch.

"What did you say, bastard?" The cook asked, hint of venom behind the tone of his voice, but it was obvious that he bit the hook Zoro threw out on purpose. He slammed the refrigerator door closed with his foot. "I'll kick your ass, say that again."

"You heard me, _shit_ cook!"

Zoro plopped down onto one of the couches, laying his swords beside him.

"Wanna go at it?" Sanji was coming closer, prancing his way towards Zoro, wild eyed and gritting his teeth. "I'll fuck you up," he slurred in a gangster-like tone, like one of those mafias that Zoro had encountered few years ago. He was smiling.

 _Yes, I want to fight!_ The child inside of Zoro screamed with delight.

Zoro was on his feet, prepared for those legs this time.

"Come at me!"

Sanji began to move, as lithe and graceful as a snake; and Zoro couldn't help but admire the hidden strength that the blond demonstrated with each movement. It was an undeniable fact that he knew how to fight and control the destructive powers that were stored in his calves.

 _Oh, shit!_

The blond whirled one of his legs followed by the other, twirling them around like a fan; Zoro dodged the ones he could and blocked the ones he couldn't with the backs of his forearms. The blond's hands were rooted to the slick floor. The stability of his upper body was firm while his legs were constantly in motion, and it was all too impressive for Zoro who had never even seen such a fighting style before.

"Take that!" Another blow at Zoro's chest, who almost fell back but didn't.

"Fuck you!" The familiar feeling of exhilaration swept through him once more. He hadn't had this much fun since Kuina had been alive, all those years ago.

Sanji was on his feet again, as graceful as an acrobat, or a dancer.

"Stand still, damn mosshead." Though his words were harsh, on his face, a playful and impish grin was surfacing. He was having fun too, Zoro could tell.

The blond did a handstand, with his long legs straight up in the air, and this time right in front of the swordsman. The flap of his apron was upside down, like a woman's skirt, except there was nothing revealing underneath. Sanji softly chuckled before one of his legs sliced through the air, vertically striking down, aiming straight for Zoro's head. Zoro tried to leap back to dodge but he could only sway to the side to avoid fatal damage. He wasn't quick enough. He received the full impact of the blond's foot on his shoulder, the shoulder that did not have a punctured wound.

If Sanji had not took his shoes off before coming inside, the impact would have shattered Zoro's bones; however, since they were socks instead, only a bruise was to be expected later on.

"Damn!" Zoro gritted his teeth.

 _He's so strong,_ he admitted silently.

While the blond was lolling his head to the side again, cockily grinning so, Zoro managed to slam into him, a full body slam, and managed to topple Sanji off of his feet. "Eh!" The blond's poised expression quickly switched into a surprised one as he toppled over. To secure his win, Zoro strapped Sanji's arms above his head firmly against the ground, and dug his right knee into his chest. But it was easier said than done with Sanji flailing like a fish and growling at him like a rabid beast.

"You're so fucking heavy, get the hell off of me!" The blond groused, thrashing beneath Zoro.

The swordsman's lips hovered over Sanji's, their breaths mingling. He could smell the cook's breath, scent of cigarettes and peppermint, thyme and apples, coffee and Jasmine tea. Combinations that oddly had an alluring effect on the swordsman. "Hell no," he growled into the blond's ear. He imagined an imaginary scoreboard and points shooting up under his name, indicating that he had won this round.

Sanji smirked, tearing a hole into that newly built-up pride of Zoro's.

"Stupid."

 _What?_ Zoro was taken back by the man's sudden nonchalant behavior.

Then he knew.

 _Shit! His legs!_ He forgot to pin down the man's main weapons. It was like forgetting to take Zoro's swords away from him. _How fucking stupid, indeed._ Sanji's knees jabbed Zoro right in the back; and feeling like two metal bars had just swung straight into his body, he loosened his grip on the blond's hands— just a little, but enough for Sanji to slip below him, free from the swordsman's hold.

 _Damn!_ But it was expected! And admittedly, he had hoped that Sanji was strong enough to figure his way out of Zoro's grip.

"Ugh," Zoro groaned, rolling onto his back, staring at the blond who had already gotten on his feet. He felt pain everywhere— both his shoulders and a focal point on his back, where there was a throbbing pulse.

Sanji already had a rising smoke above his lips, breathing heavily from the recent exertion.

"Sorry, man. I forgot you were injured." The flap of his apron had followed the rules of gravity and had lax down below his hips again. "Here." His hand was offered for Zoro to take, stretched out in front of him, his fingers pointing towards Zoro's lying form.

"Call it a truce between us?"

 _Hell no_ , Zoro wanted to hiss like a violated cat, but the inner child in him that had enjoyed and appreciated the fight reached out to grasp the blond's hand. He gripped it tightly, fingers wrapping around the lean but masculine hand, feeling the heat radiating off of his palm as well as his own.

"Yeah, whatever," he grouched.

Then, with the blond's help, he was pulled up to his feet.

Sanji grinned before strolling back to the kitchen, freeing his hand from Zoro's tight clutch. His jeans wiggled as his fingers hovered over the band of his pants, clutching the denim fabric to tug it over his hips since the width of the jeans were too wide for his small, tight ass.

"You know, you're pretty okay at fighting. Where did you learn to fight like that?" The blond asked, seemingly interested in the edges of Zoro's personal life. He stood behind the counter, fumbling with some round ingredients, facing Zoro.

Zoro snorted.

If he was simply 'okay' at fighting, then the rest of the human population were helpless fetuses crawling on their fucking knees. "I trained by myself. My specialty is swordsmanship though, not that boxing shit I just did." He trained with Kaku along with the rest of the professional fighters from the organization, not that Sanji needed to know that.

"Swords, huh?" Sanji was thoughtlessly cutting the onion into pieces after he had peeled the skin. "You have three, right?"

"Yeah."

The blond scooped the square pieces into the cup of his hands and poured them into a giant plastic bowl. "Do you stick one up your ass while using it? Why do you have three?"

"I put one in my mouth," Zoro stated.

Sanji stupidly snickered, air fuming from his nose unevenly. "That's what she said." He was grinning at the tomatoes he was chopping up, his golden strands blocking the swordsman's view of his eyes.

A tiny smirk began to play along at the tips of Zoro's lips, but he held back; instead, he flipped the upturned mouth of his into a frown. "You sound like a teenager." It was exactly from a teen whom he had heard the sexual reference 'that's what she said' from. His arms were resting on the counter, overlapping one another; and his right hand was tucked in beneath his left wrist, his forefinger tapping against the marble surface rhythmically.

"I'm damn close to that age too, what do you expect?"

Zoro raised a brow, "How old are you?"

"I'm nineteen, you?"

A hitch of silence.

"I'm nineteen, too" Zoro stated, unconvinced. He turned his eyes on the blond's face, where he could clearly see the outline of his lean jaws and pink lips— with the most ideal cupid's bow and straight, whitened teeth. How could a face like that be the same age as his own? A sudden flare of competitiveness sparked within him. "When's your birthday? I bet that I'm older than you," Zoro said, cockily, and smirked.

The blond pursed his lips as he swirled the mixed and thoroughly chopped vegetables into the frying pan, cracking an egg into the mix. "March second, I'm a pretty early bird of the year. You?"

Ah, _damn._

"November eleventh."

His birthday was an information about himself that he had preserved after all of these year— though there had been no one to celebrate it with; but perhaps, as cliche as it sounds, he had hoped that one day he would have someone by his side to share a cake with and get a gift from.

Damn, it was a bad idea staying with Sanji, after all; he was already getting mushy with all this and that, thinking about the stuff that could have, would have, and should have been.

The sound of a velvety chuckle filled the kitchen, "You're a late bird of the year. Why did you think you were older than me?"

"Because you look younger than me." Zoro rested the right side of his head on top of his right arm, staring at the blond with his slanted vision.

"Just like that, huh."

"Yeah."

From where he sat, Zoro was able to see the lean figure of Sanji's body, moving in a fluid motion to combine the various types of flavors of great finesse onto a plate. His curiosity piqued when Sanji began to pour unusual ingredients into the pot— like octopus legs, cow's tongue, pig's foot, and et cetera. He wondered why in the hell the blond was using these ingredients to cook for friends.

"What the hell are you making?" he asked

"I don't know, mosshead, but it's going to be good. I've been into bizarre foods lately because I want to see how well I can cook them. Even if it turns out bad, my friend who eats a lot can finish them up. He literally eats like a trash can. It's kind of funny, actually," he chuckled.

The first thing Zoro noticed about Sanji, aside from his handsome physical appearance, was that he really loved talking about his friends. Whether it be about the guy who eats five meals a day or about those two beautiful girls he loves so much, the stories about them always brought a smile to the blond's face. It was endearing, really. It almost brought a smile to his own face... Oh, _no_. Snap out of it! This damn mushy blond was making him mushy also.

He mentally slapped himself, _repeatedly_.

 _What am I still doing here?_ a part of him whispered in the back of his mind, attempting to remind him of his own cruel reality that was set apart from this soothing one the blond was having. _Just until his friends come,_ he reminded himself. He did want to meet this cook's friends, they seemed like fascinating people from the way Sanji was talking about them.

"What time are your friends coming?"

Sanji's lips fondled the filter of his cigarette that he had placed in between his teeth a few seconds ago. "Hm... probably six, maybe seven, but some of them are really tardy, so around seven-thirty."

The clock on the wall, across from where he sat, read 3:37 P.M., so he silently wondered what he was going to do until then. He was damn bored. The only entertainment around here was the cook, who was cooking and not fighting with him. His body itched for that moment of action again, for that frame of time to replay over and over, because it was so fucking exhilarating and got his adrenaline running until his heart pounded in his ears. It had been so many years since he last felt this type of challenge, kicking him right in the gut— almost literally. But right now, he could only strike a conversation about the blond's friends to keep himself busy.

"How many are there?"

"Luffy, Ace, Usopp, Chopper, Franky, Brook, and my three lovely ladies— Kaya, Nami and Robin." He paused to think, "So that's like eight people."

"Nine," Zoro corrected.

"Oh yeah, so nine people," he said absentmindedly. "But sometimes Chopper, Brook, and Robin can't come cuz they lead busy lives."

 _Doesn't matter because I don't know any of them..._

"How are you going to introduce me? The guy who you found dead in the middle of the night?" He snorted, then smelt the delicious scent of something wafting over his way, tickling his nostrils.

 _Oh god, that's heavenly._

"Half dead," Sanji corrected this time, with a point of his finger towards Zoro and a playful smirk on his attractive features. "And if they ask any further, then-"

 _Then, what?_

It had occurred to Zoro, more or less, that this was an unusual situation; that someone this wealthy (in reference to Sanji's luxurious and significantly large house) would ever allow a complete stranger into his house and meet his friends. Sure, he could have a benevolent heart, whatever that means, but everybody had their own suspicions, and it was just plain weird that Sanji did not have any.

"-you're one of my customers," the blond concluded before finishing up another plate full of his own creations- a fried mix of octopus, rice, and a red mystery sauce drizzled on top. "You wanna try it?" he asked with vivid enthusiasm, freely showing pride in his own work of art. An art that did not immortalize, but brought a certain satisfaction to those who ate it.

Zoro lifted his head before stretching his left arm out. "Yeah, hand it over."

The blond cleared his throat. "Since this is my first time making something like this, I hope it doesn't leave a sour aftertaste in your mouth."

After hearing those words, Zoro did not expect too much.

"Whatever, I'm starving," he said, nonchalantly, as he reached for the food.

He dragged the fine glassy plate against the marble island counter with his thumb and index finger, and brought it right beneath his nose; and though the blond said that it might not have turned out too well, the scent drifting into his nostrils smelt absolutely sublime. As soon as his spoon entered the cavern of his mouth and spilled the content on his tongue, the flavors exploded. It caused him to experience the highest and the tastiest ecstasy man had ever known. A groan, half a moan, escaped his lips. The chewy and spicy octopus went well with the soft, salty flavors of the white rice.

"How is it?" the blond asked, enthusiastically, and gave him a charming quizzical smile of his.

Zoro avoided Sanji's blue and piercing gaze, which stared at him all excited like a newborn pup out of its mother's womb.

"It's okay." The understatement of the year, the fucking century.

The blond grinned, then gave him another plate of ecstasy on a plate. "You know, there is a reason why I'm keeping you around, mosshead." Sanji chuckled, appearing slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, so you're finally going to answer my previous question about why you're so damn nice to me?" Zoro teased with a snarky grin. "Even though I'm a total stranger who you've never met before."

"I told you," Sanji drawled out the words with a raised brow, "that this is not benignity, though it has a nice ring to it." He paused as a scowl washed over his expression, "I think the reason why I've decided to take care of you is because you're like a pet to me. A little ball of moss. A _marimo_ ," the blond cooed.

Zoro bared his teeth, "Bastard, I'll kill you!"

The cook popped his middle finger up and held it in front of him; a lean, proud finger sticking up high in the air. "Stick your third sword up your ass, _marimo_ ," he purred in a honeyed and taunting tone of voice. "I'm sure it'll fit better there than in your mouth."

Whoa.

When Sanji flicked his eye towards him as he said those words, the most uncanny response occurred in his body. Zoro's body lit up like a fire, specifically his loins. His salty dry lips roughly rubbed against one another as his wet tongue slicked over them, and he almost flushed under the pressing gaze of the blond's as he unintentionally slackened his jaw, unscrewing his mouth to gawp like a goldfish.

"Ah, damn. I don't have anymore sugar!" the blond switched the subject with a dramatized gasp, like those women from 1920's black and white movies.

"Take care of the house, marimo. I'm going to go grocery shopping." He swiftly untied the knots of his apron and replaced the external layer with his jacket, quickly throwing a gray scarf around his neck. He grabbed his wallet and keys from the coffee table and headed for the door. "I'll be back in ten minutes, probably," the blond yelled before slamming the door behind him, leaving the confused and slightly stimulated Zoro behind.

The slam of the door jolted Zoro from his trance-like state, which triggered him to shout, "I'll make sure to steal every valuable thing you have!"

Of course, the blond was already out the door by then, so his empty words simply hung there with a terrible silence, which brought a sense of solitariness to his chest. The empty space that had appeared so picturesque and lavish initially had shed its ideal image, leaving only a house that was _way_ too big for a single person to live in. Then again, he had always lived a life of solitude, so this wasn't too much of a difference to him.

For the ten minutes the blond promised he would take, Zoro finished his food, washed the dishes, and lazily sprawled out on the couch, with the heels of his feet resting on one of the arms of the sofa. He closed his eyes, and waited until he could hear the small click of the door opening and a shivering blond noisily walking in with groceries in hand.

But he dozed off instead.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

The second time Zoro woke up at the presence of the cook, it was practically identical to the first. He was cooking up a grand meal with a shitty, tacky Christmas tune playing in the background.

It was classic.

"Hey, it's fine man. I know you have to deal with Kaya and her family about the whole relationship thing," he heard Sanji speaking on the phone. "Yeah, as usual Chopper, Brook, and Robin can't come either." He paused respectively for the person on the other line to respond. "I know," he whispered. "Look, I can't talk about that right now, I just hope Luffy doesn't flip shit when he gets here."

 _Luffy..._ The kid who eats like an elephant.

"Stop apologizing, man. I have to go now. Just don't try to get me out of it because it'll be harder for me if you guys keep doing this," he said, sternly, before hanging up the call. "So, Luffy, Ace, Nami, and... Zoro," Sanji listed under his breath as the tune of ' _Santa Claus is Coming to Town_ ' quietly played behind his head from where the swordsman sat.

Zoro peeked his green head above the couch to steal a curious glimpse of the cook, who was propped against the kitchen counter for support, with his back slouched and his chin resting on the cup of his palm. In front of Sanji, stretched out across the extended counter, there were endless rows of plates and pots, covered with plastic wraps; with various combinations of flavors perfuming the air, and the pampering cook standing beside them. It was no wonder that that Luffy kid had a huge appetite.

Sanji heaved a heavy sigh of stress before mumbling, "I hope Usopp gets the problem solved before Christmas," under his breath

 _Usopp..._ The guy who profusely tells lies.

Awkwardly, the swordsman stood steadily on his feet, hand rubbing the back of his neck, as a form of habit from when his neck used to creak after long hours of meditation. He cleared his throat loudly, and the blond who had been talking out loud stared at him in surprise, mouth agape and pupils dilated. Really, he shouldn't be _that_ surprised that Zoro had caught him talking to himself. The clock adjacent to the high-tech radio mechanic read 6:07 P.M., which meant that he had slept for about three hours.

"Hey," the cook greeted him while shakily lifting himself off the counter. "Nice nap?"

 _Hell of a nap_ , Zoro wanted to respond. He could not remember the last time he had felt so relaxed, sleeping with another's presence so close to him. As a child, he had trained himself to always be half-awake and half-asleep, an exhausting technique that requires a lot more nap time, but it had saved his ass so many times as there were many traitors and infiltrators in the organization.

"It was okay," he replied instead.

"Right," Sanji said dully, unconvinced.

The blond grinned like an idiot, sending a delightful chill up Zoro's spine, branching out through the nerves in his brain and shooting explosions of sensations to every inch of his body.

"It seems that only three of my friends can make it tonight. Two of them are the D brothers, and they eat like pigs, so I don't have to worry about wasting food. Also, my lovely angel, whose image cannot be captured because of her overwhelming beauty, Nami, is also coming tonight." The blond's expression fell into one of those dreamy, perverted smiles that only lonely old men had at the thought of a young girl.

" _Ahh,_ the sweet thought of Nami makes me shiver in joy."

Zoro cringed inwardly as the tingling sensations dulled and died, with an image of a bird falling out of a tree in his head.

The blond's face dropped when his gaze fell upon the swordsman, who sat at the edge of the gray bar stool, as though the sad reality from his fantasies had dawned upon him when he saw Zoro.

Sanji let out a disappointed sigh.

 _Annoying._

"Since we have an hour to waste, let's get to know each over a cup of wine," Sanji suggested as he extracted two fine wine glasses and a tall wine bottle, labeled 'Pinot Grigio', from the cabinets. "This is the most selling wine in my restaurant, so I took one to try it myself."

"Isn't that illegal?" he asked as Sanji unwrapped the foil of the bottle and removed the cork with a loud pop.

"It doesn't matter because I own that restaurant," the cook responded, casually, bringing the bottle closer to where Zoro sat.

The green haired man raised a curious brow, recalling that the cook was only nineteen like himself. The two were both young by society's standards, but Zoro was already on the second ranking of his organization and the blond was the owner of his restaurant.

Perhaps Sanji wasn't as normal as he had initially assumed.

 _That explains this house_ , Zoro thought.

Zoro's fingers fiddled with the stem of the wine glass as the cook gracefully tipped the wine bottle into two wine glasses, carefully pouring about 4 or 5 ounces into each cup. Then the cook raised the aperture of the bottle and wiped down the neck with a clean white cloth, gracefully performing those duties like a very experienced waiter.

"You're young though," Zoro flatly stated as his fingers tapped against the base of his wine glass.

"When did you turn into an old geezer?" Sanji raised the glass to his lips. "I mean, to make things even, you're too young to get shot like that," he pointed at the swordsman's wound with his outstretched pinky.

He had a fair point.

To drink, the blond encased the transparent glass between his lips, and his scarlet tongue passing between his teeth lapped at the light colored liquid. Sanji closed his eyes to enhance and savor the flavor of the wine; in contrast, Zoro gulped the liquid at once, and hardly felt it going down his throat.

He hungrily drank the view of Sanji, who swiveled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing every last bit...

Zoro groaned as another stir aroused in his abdomen. _What's wrong with me?_

The blond awkwardly cleared his throat. "So," he drawled out as if he was trying to figure out what to say within that split second. "Why three?" In a high-strung manner, Sanji avoided the swordsman's gaze and instead fixated his gaze on the wine in his hand, which was half consumed. "Your swords, I mean." His visible curled eyebrow was twitching like crazy.

 _Damn, that eyebrow is weird._

Whatever weird phenomenon happened to that thing, Zoro did not want to know.

The swordsman squinted his eyes a bit and his vision zoomed out of Sanji's eyebrow like a camera lens. To answer the blond's question, Zoro had to think all the way back to his past, when he was a simple child with a single road as a thought process, with nothing in his mind except for a certain little girl.

From his dim recollections of her, his lips curved into a smile.

 _Zoro,_ she called out, sternly, from his memories.

"Well, I used to believe that having more swords meant having more power," the swordsman said with softened eyes; the image of the black haired girl still flashing in his mind. "Stupid, right?"

"Yeah," Sanji responded without a beat.

Then the blond began to crack up, a boyish laugh escaping his lips as he held his stomach in his hands. The visible corner of his eye crinkling and a large grin outstretching from ear to ear as he bit down on his bottom lip, his tongue encased and hidden behind the rows of his straight teeth. Sanji wrapped his fingers around the cold exterior of the wine bottle; and this time less elegantly, much like an unruly pirate, tipped it into Zoro's cup. "Don't get drunk," he warned, with a hint of challenge in his eyes, as he filled the cup all the way.

The swordsman snorted, "I don't get drunk."

Sanji leaned in closer, "Oh, _really_?" His interest seemingly piqued. "We should have a drinking contest sometimes." He propped his chin on the palm of his hand.

The swordsman snorted because in his whole life span, even as a weeaboo teenager who'd just attained the habit of drinking, not a single person had been able to defeat him. Drinking, even more than swordsmanship, was something he was confident at.

"Swirly brow, can _you_ hold your liquor?" Zoro asked.

The blond guffawed, with his jaw snapped open and a tint of rosey pink brushed on his cheeks. "Hell no." He placed his forefinger in front of Zoro, who saw the blond's perfectly trimmed cuticles right in between his crossed eyes. "My dear, Nami, can hold her liquor and she's a _lady_. A hell of a one at that. If you guys had a drinking contest, she'd beat you without a beat."

The swordsman scrutinized Sanji with a flare of intrigue.

"Doubt it."

One glass of wine. One glass was enough to get this blond slightly tipsy and put a blooming blush on his cheeks. As for Zoro, to feel a remote buzz, it would take at least four bottle of wine, laid next to each other in shot arrangements.

Sanji tilted his head to the side in wonder, his eyes narrowed with curiosity. "By the way, should I ask why you carry around swords in the first place?"

"No."

"Why not? You might turn out to be a serial killer," the blond pressed with a smirk, clearly poking fun at the matter, without knowing the fact that Zoro is actually an _assassin_ who kills people. The fact of the matter was not so far off from Sanji's presumptions, though not as a hobby as he had thought it out to be.

An uncomfortable guilt probed at all ends of his chest. _I don't want to lie to him, but I can't risk telling him the truth._

But luckily, as though the universe had heard his silent plea, a young man's voice called out from the other side of the door.

" _Oi, Sanji_ "

Simultaneously there were hard, hollow knuckles frantically tapping against the door and the bell buzzing repeatedly.

" _Ah_ , my friends are here," Sanji announced.


	4. Chapter 4

When Zoro opened his eyes again, he was in a dim setting with only the silhouette of furniture in sight, and a thin body wrapped around his waist, tightly clutching the hem of Zoro's shirt into the small balls of his hands. The swordsman flicked his gaze on the boy with raven hair, with his drool sticking his cheeks to the hard floor, his head snuggled under Zoro's arm, murmuring 'food' and 'Sanji' under his breath.

 _Dammit, Luffy!_

The green haired man pulled himself away from the boy who wore his straw hat even to his sleep, pushing his sticky mouth away with the flat of his palm, grunting slightly when he found the task more difficult than expected. When he finally got those lanky arms around his waist loose, he quickly jumped to his feet so the young boy would not be able to catch him in his tight grip again. Zoro saw that Ace was latched onto Luffy's ankles and that Nami was nowhere in sight; she probably took advantage of the situation and slept on Sanji's comfortable bed; and speaking of the blond, he was also nowhere in sight either.

The digital clock beneath the television screen read 3:27 A.M., which told him that Sanji could not be _that_ far away when it was so late at night, or so early in the morning.

Zoro strode around the spacious and dim room, used his keen senses to avoid tripping over empty beer bottles and plastic martini cups, and saw a thin gray smoke rising outside the sliding transparent door that led to the back porch. The green haired man lightly tiptoed around the couch to not disturb those asleep. He slipped between the small crack he slid open for himself to meet the chilly night air and the heavy smog of nicotine Sanji was blowing out.

"Hey, couldn't sleep?" Zoro asked, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

The cold air nipping at his skin brought out goosebumps on his bare arms and his teeth to clatter noisily.

Startled by the sudden baritone voice, Sanji tensed up and clenched the filter of his cigarette between his two fingers.

"Zoro," he realized as the motion sensor lit above the swordsman's head, illuminating the small perimeter and making the green hair more visible. There was a hitch of silence before he spoke again, initiating his sentence with a nervous chuckle, "I couldn't sleep with Luffy's stupid foot digging into my nostrils and my throat was itching for a cigarette, how about you?"

The green haired man snickered with good humor as he crossed his hairless arms over his chest, "I _also_ couldn't sleep because Luffy was slobbering all over me, using me as a body pillow and shit."

Sanji narrowed his eyes, distantly staring off into the darkness, "You know, even when I think about it real hard, I still can't remember how we all ended up on the floor instead of pulling out the sleeping bags from my closet."

"Yeah, you got pretty drunk after _four_ glasses of wine," he taunted. "You can't hold your liquor for shit."

And it was true.

While Zoro was downing swig after swig of rum, Sanji was acting like a fool, with a half glass of wine in his hand, spinning like a drunkard and giggling about having a big fat crush on Nami ever since high school.

"Shut the fuck up," the blond growled.

He rested his elbows against the porch railing as he blew out the smoke into the night through his puckered lips.

"This headache is fucking _killing_ me. I don't even remember half the things I did last night, mind filling in the blanks for me?"

Zoro nodded slowly, intrigued by the blond's blank eyes and relaxed posture. But the light bulb above them dimmed when it could not detect anymore movements, leaving the two men with a dawning silence that only their voices could fill. Sanji's request was easy since Zoro had been the single sober one last night. Since he did not know which memories were missing from Sanji's head in the night's busy events, he decided to tell it from the very top.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

Zoro remained motionless, his butt grounded on the gray bar stool while Sanji jumped to his feet to jog toward the door. The blond's expression cracked into a wide grin. Sanji's feet only touched the ground a few times while sprinting due to his undeniably long legs, almost hovering over the floors, before he came into a screeching halt before the door. Sanji pulled the door knob impatiently, swung open the entryway to reveal a tall, built man next to a shorter male with a leaner build; and behind the two male figures, there was a tall woman in wedges, with an extreme hourglass figure that was noticeable even beneath her puffy winter wear.

The blond instantly had hearts bulging out of his eye sockets.

"Nami, my darling," he cooed as he cunningly wrapped his arm around her bare shoulders to guide her inside, pushing through the two males, as though she did not know the direction from the doorway to the expanse of the interior.

"You look beautiful tonight, _as always_."

 _What an idiot_ , Zoro thought as he visibly rolled his eyes.

The red haired woman glanced up with her bright auburn eyes and coyly smiled. "Thanks, Sanji. You are looking handsome tonight, as well."

The hearts in the idiot's eyes popped out as his jaws slacked and his mouth dropped, completely merciless against the woman who had him wrapped around her manicured fingers.

"Sanji!"

The small guy jumped on the cook, who had launched from the doorway, and wrapped his legs around his waist, pressing his round head against Sanji's chest.

His skinny arms pulled them close into a friendly hug. "I missed you!" he cheerfully mumbled into the blond's chest, between his buttoned up shirt.

"Hey, Luffy," Sanji greeted as he disheveled the young man's raven hair, looking down at the boy with a playful smirk.

From behind the blond, who had a monkey bundled around his body, another man with raven hair came in. In comparison to Luffy, the big ol' eater whom Zoro had expected to be big and heavily built, this one actually had a much larger build than Luffy and freckles all over his defined, handsome features.

"Yo, Sanji."

He had a husky and confident tone of voice, as well as a smile that matched Luffy's, almost identical as though they were brothers (which he found out that they are).

It was uncanny how ecstatic and enthusiastic Sanji was, like a mongrel whose owner had just returned from a long trip overseas.

"Oi, cook," Zoro called out all the way from the kitchen.

He observed that all of the groups' goofy smiles had melted into their features, immediately replaced by serious ones, except for Luffy's whose eyes only burned with confusion.

 _What's taking them so long?_

"Oi!" he called out again, but a bit louder than the first time.

The group, except for Luffy, had turned to stare at him with curious and stern eyes before making their way to the kitchen.

The first one to greet him was the woman with red hair, that was more orange than the color red that painters used on their canvases.

"Hello," she said, with an aloof and casual smile. She dug her forefinger into the heel of her long platform wedges, to toss the shoes aside before stepping into the kitchen.

The next person came in, the man with freckled face and raven hair. "Hey man, I'm Ace," he waved his hand over his head, "Your name is Zoro, right?"

"Yeah. Hey... man."

Zoro strolled over to Ace to firmly shake his hand, which had a firm grip and calluses, unlike the woman's, whose hands were soft and slender.

 _This feels oddly formal_ , he thought.

The reality was completely different than the expectations he had built from the stories Sanji had told about them and his first impression of them just a moment ago.

The cook inquisitively glanced to his side where Luffy was standing, whose eyes were completely engrossed in the swordsman.

" _Huh._ "

The boy grabbed his chin with the squeeze of his first two fingers, one leg stretched out horizontally by his side to support the balance of his body tilting along with his head.

"Green…"

A grin tugged at both ends of the swordsman's lips. There was an amicable aura about this young man with unwavering wide eyes that Zoro immediately took a liken to, since there weren't many men or women out there who could hold a steady gaze with Zoro. Many had told him that he had this sort of a demonic aura surrounding him, making him unapproachable and often feared at first sight.

"Yeah, it's natural," he replied with a slight nod of his head before the boy could structure the question himself.

Nami nudged the boy with her elbow as if to remind him, "Luffy, Sanji made us tons of food."

In a comical manner, Luffy bounced lightly back on his feet and clapped his hands in jagged movements, eyes beaming with childish excitement.

"Food! Food! Food!"

He raved as he trudged around the marble counter with his tumultuous footsteps, clapping his hands after the end of every word.

But before Luffy could even touch the food, Sanji swiftly kicked him out of the way, with a deadpan expression and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Wait till Nami takes a seat, rubber brat. Ladies are always first," he groused as he pulled out a stool for Nami to sit in.

 _What the hell?_ Zoro thought as he heard a loud thud.

But it seemed that the group was already used to the cook's violent behaviors and extreme obsession with pretty women because they casually took seats next to and across from one another, with Ace initiating the conversation about their daily lives. They completely brushed off the fact that Sanji had just kicked the shit out of this _kid_ ,with those steel legs of his that had done more damage to Zoro than what he had sustained in _years_.

" _Ow_ , Sanji..."

The straw hat boy picked himself off the ground, rubbing his tender head with his palm. Then his expression brightened when Nami uncovered the lid to reveal a nicely roasted duck.

"Ooh, what is that? Is that meat?"

He skipped over to the counter and sat next to Sanji, who had taken a seat next to the red haired woman. It seemed Luffy had already forgotten that he was kicked across the sizable kitchen and hit his head against the refrigerator, or perhaps he hit his head so hard that he had forgotten those few seconds of abuse.

Zoro stared at the rowdy bunch with a stoic expression.

He'd met plenty of eccentric people in his life and had grown tolerant and somewhat oblivious to them, but these people brought the word 'eccentric' to a whole new level. Weirdest fucking people he has ever encountered, but _harmless_.

Zoro took a seat next to Ace, across from the blond who still had an undertone of pink burning both sides of his cheeks.

"How's the business for Baratie going lately?" Ace asked Sanji.

The blond answered, "It's been booming, man. I mean, even though I always tell you guys that I hate the rush hours and the crazy customers, I'm _so_ glad I'm not failing that old geezer's business." He slurred his words a bit, alcohol clearly messing with his system.

Nami sighed as she shook her head, "You're such a workaholic, Sanji. You're so young, you have to live your life instead of working such long hours five days a week."

The man's idiotic face broke into a slobbering grin, with hearts popping out of his eyes again.

" _Ahh..._ Nami, my darling, how I love your caring side... and how you care for _me,_ the _undeserving_ me. I am so touched by your overflowing kindness." Sanji was trying to speak Shakespeare again, throwing his hands up to dramatize his emotions.

Zoro wanted to throw up in his mouth.

 _Skirt chaser..._

Luffy was grinning at the blond around a mouth stuffed with food, muttering, "I cware abrout shou, too (I care about you, too)."

By the unmannerly and obnoxious table etiquette of the young man, Nami smirked, her attention hampered from being completely fixated on Sanji's poetic love confessions. The blond's lips drew into a thin line, and with unamused eyes, he snapped, "Just eat your food, damn rubber man."

Luffy's grin didn't falter. It actually stretched even further, and Zoro wondered how _big_ his smile could actually get.

Cutting in between the multiple ongoing conversations, Zoro spoke up, piqued by a certain comment made by Sanji.

"Hey, curly brows, why are you calling him rubber man?'"

The group turned to look at him, with surprised expressions, as if wondering how long Zoro had been sitting with them.

Ace perked up to answer, "It's a nickname we made for him because Luffy always bounces back up when he's thrown around, physically and mentally, just like rubber." He grinned good-naturally, "Only Sanji and Nami use it though, since they are the ones who abuse him."

Nami pouted, "I don't _abuse,_ Ace. It's just that your brother can be too much sometimes." She sighed into her palm, elbow rested on the counter.

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed heartily, "This is so good, Sanji. I am going to your restaurant tomorrow with Ace again."

The blond groaned, but with that same tender expression he used every time he talked about his friends to Zoro, that feigned annoyance which hid his inner bloating happiness. To Zoro, he might as well been grinning from ear to ear— just like Luffy.

"You better not order everything on the menu again. My customers thought the place was a buffet afterward because you were scarfing down everything in sight."

The group laughed and Ace faintly replied, "I remember that."

And just like that, the conversations once again condensed into a bunch of insider jokes and "remember when's," secluding Zoro from their private puns. But occasionally, when he pretended to be interested in his food, he felt Sanji's eyes burning a hole through his skull, flickering but intense gaze of a drunken person, taking small and unnoticeable breaks from the collective conversation to rest his eyes on Zoro. He swallowed as his throat tightened, _feeling_ the blond's eyes rested on his forehead, prickling his skin like a bunch of needles.

Zoro stared down at his plate, restraining the blooming blush from forming across his cheeks.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

Sanji grunted, "I was _not_ staring at you, dumb marimo. I was just... drunk, a bit, because I _clearly_ remember you avoiding our conversations and glaring down at your food. I'm surprised that the food didn't rot from your dirty looks."

"Shut up," the swordsman growled as he heard the blond's soft chuckle in the intangible darkness that surrounded them. " _Women-pleaser_ ," he threw in every bite and criticism into that single phrase, thinking back on Sanji's pathetic performances around every pretty female in sight.

Sanji's chuckles bubbled into a harsh laughter, with shortage of breaths, leaving him to pant with puffs of his chest afterwards.

"I _do_ please my women, with a magic I like to call... my _penis_."

The moment was worth every fiber of his being, shrinking and cringing from the bad pun the blond had just made. The swordsman, however, remained aloof, his guise of perfect control and composure, not that Sanji was able to see his expression anyways. He could barely make out the outline of the cook's body.

"Annoying perv," he grunted.

"I'm just joking, marimo. I respect women _way_ too much to just have sex with them and leave. I fucking detest the bastards who do that kind of shit," his voice sounded serious. "But I do admit, the whole idea of 'no strings attached' has a nice ring to it. After all, relationships only drag your emotions around like a dirty dish rag, it would be nice to just relieve stress without caring about the consequences sometimes..."

The cook trailed off, and for a few seconds there was a pin-drop silence, except for the occasional heavy exhales. Zoro could almost imagine the blond's expression of total tranquility, with his soft lips clamped around the edge of the cigarette, eyes closed.

And although he could clearly picture it in his mind, he wanted to see it with his own eyes.

"Oi, continue your story, but skip the boring introduction that I know already," Sanji grumbled. "Let's see, after dinner, the part where we all started playing video games..."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Dammit, Luffy, Kirby is _my_ thing!" the blond screamed his head off, hue of scarlet soaked into his cheekbones.

The raven haired boy pouted, "Aw, come on, Sanji. I'll change the color of it. You can be blue Kirby and I can be red Kirby."

"Stop arguing, you idiots. Let's start this game already," demanded the red haired woman, who had already picked her character as Donkey Kong, an anthropomorphic gorilla that pounded its chest every five seconds.

In which the idiot responded, "Of course, Nami!" in a sickeningly loving tone.

In addition to those three, both Sanji and Luffy being Kirby and Nami being Donkey Kong, Ace was Fox McCloud. He said he liked it when the character engulfed itself in flames and charged upward, which Zoro did not fully understand until he saw it being done. Sanji had told Zoro to pay extra attention to the game, since the swordsman had never played Super Smash Bros. before, or any video games until now. Zoro watched how the four players used their controllers to lash out special attacks on one another, viciously pressing down on the buttons as though that increased the strength of their attacks. On the wide flat-screen, there was an array display of colors when Nami punched the floating orb called the smash ball, immobilizing her opponents with the sound waves of Donkey Kong's bongos.

"Goddammit Luffy, don't fucking swallow me!"

Zoro raised an eyebrow.

"We're both Kirbys, it's not going to help-" But as soon as the red Kirby spat out the blue Kirby, it swung its hammer out of thin air and sent Sanji's blue blob spiraling to the screen, hitting the camera before being KO'd.

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed triumphantly, "I beat you, Sanji."

Sanji grunted.

Shortly after, Nami knocked both Luffy and Ace out of the stadium with her brutal attacks, Luffy first then Ace.

Then with a wicked, devilish smirk, she asked Sanji for a favor, "I'm very thirsty, can you please make me some margaritas and mojitos, Sanji?"

The wench even winked at the end to completely win the dumb blond over.

"Of course, my darling, anything for my beautiful lady!" he shouted before jumping quick on his feet.

 _Dumb ass_

The blond's game controller was handed to Zoro, who firmly gripped it by the handles and hovered his thumbs over the labeled buttons; and though he had observed the others handling it the whole fight, he had not fully grasped the concept behind it himself.

"Luffy, what do I do?" he whispered to the boy next to him.

Luffy leaned over, smelling of the food and spices he just ate. "You choose your character with this swirly thing and then click _this_ button once you're done." He roughly guided the swordsman's thumb over the buttons.

"Which character has a sword?"

As he switched between character to character, his fingers became more adjusted to the controller in his hand, even more when the young boy had told him the functions behind each button. The blond plopped on the other side of the swordsman, placed the platter of drinks flat on the floor, and pointed to a specific character on the screen.

"That would be Ike, marimo, the blue haired dude with a red cape," he informed Zoro, "he has a sword."

Ace pressed start when the swordsman had settled on a blue eyed, pretty looking male character with a gladiator sword, Zoro only hoped that Ike was half as good as _he_ is in real life.

The green haired man's nostrils were filled with the scent of the cook, a damn good cook, as Sanji leaned closer to teach him the basics of the game, about testing out his attacks and picking up dropped items and aiming for the super smash ball each time it appears. But Zoro could only concentrate on the texture of the blond's rugged and coarse hands as they hovered over his own; his heart sped up dissimilar from when Luffy was touching him. His knee, covered by the fabric of his jeans, burned nonetheless when Sanji's exposed hairy leg brushed up against it; his breath hitched at every movement, every shift by Sanji's, and he damn wondered why the fuck he simply could not concentrate on the game.

Within a few minutes, his limited five lives were thrown across the stadium, over and over, by that red haired wench, who was clearly enjoying every minute of her victory.

" _Damn_ marimo, you're a complete noob," Sanji whispered in his drunken breath, cheeks so rosy red that it would've burned Zoro's fingers if he dared touch them.

The swordsman did not understand the term but knew it had a negative connotation behind it, so a streak of annoyance lined high on his forehead.

"Don't talk to me about losing when you were also the first one knocked out."

"Ah, touché... and fuck you," the blond growled, but with a playful smirk tugging at the line of his lips.

Zoro, too, smirked at the comment, setting his controller to the side as others continued to play.

"Got anything strong?" he asked, referring to the alcoholic beverage, glancing at the margaritas and mojitos Sanji made for the red haired woman. "My throat is burning for something heavy, not this fruity shit you guys call alcohol."

Sanji jumped to his feet, unstable but still graceful, "I'll check my alcohol cabinet and get the cheapest shit I have."

"The cheaper the better, cook. _They_ are the finest quality of alcohol you should be drinking," he recommended with an all-knowing glint of his eyes. "Take it from me, I know a thing or two about alcohol."

The cook was kneeling, both knees bending and ass touching the cold floor, in front of the bottom cabinet next to the oven; the back of his blond head facing where Zoro sat, who was at the borderline between the kitchen and the living room.

"Ah, my apologies," Sanji began, hint of mockery dripping heavily with each word. "I'm sure a _swordsman_ knows better than a _cook_."

Oh, man. The blond fucking knew how to provoke him good.

"Fuck you," Zoro spat, venomously, as he grabbed a bottle of Bacardi from the blond's wavering hands.

Sanji poured himself another glass of wine, three-quarters full this time, shaky on his knees when he plopped beside the green haired man. He was watching his three friends swinging around the game controllers in front of his television, and when he began to talk he sounded drowsy and heavily intoxicated when he hardly had any alcohol.

"Hey, you know something, we used to go to high school together, me and Nami," he said, slurring his words, his eyes half-lidded. "Actually, we all used to at one point. Ace, Nami, Luffy and Usopp, in age order. We used to skip out on classes, go on little adventures, and get into shitty fights with the school authorities."

He paused to hesitantly glance over at Zoro, swirling the liquid in his hand, "Are you listening?"

The swordsman didn't know why the blond was telling him all this, but he didn't really mind listening to it.

"Yeah," Zoro answered, as he took a gulp straight out of the bottle containing seventy-five percent of pure alcohol.

Sanji nodded, reassured by the simple word.

"I used to have a huge thing for Nami, you know, bigger than now, like a _real thing_. I think it's 'cause she's so easy to fall for, so fucking beautiful, straight out of the films, has a body like a Greek goddess, intoxicating to even stare at. I used to admire her from afar, like a loser, until I realized Luffy was friends with her."

Right on the cue, Luffy shouted, "I got it!" in the background, throwing his lanky arms into the empty air.

"Since I knew I wasn't going to college, I thought Nami was, like, my last chance at love," he paused again, stared at Zoro with that piercing eye of his.

"Look, marimo, I don't even know why I'm telling you all this."

He pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose with his first two digits as he squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't even stare at you for too long, my vision is shaky."

It irked Zoro to hear about the history the blond had with that witch, who clearly kept him around for attention as he saw it.

Zoro snorted. "I don't know why you're telling me this either, but it's probably 'cause you're drunk."

"True," he agreed.

The blond proceeded in regaling him with the perks of his high school life, and it was nice hearing about Sanji's early days, although they had not been too long ago. Compared to his own teenage years, which had been filled with discipline and order like the military, it relaxed him to hear a normal upbringing of another.

Sanji sure was hell drunk to the tip though, because this hard-boiled cook had not been this loose lipped until he took those couple of sips of alcohol.

"Hey, mosshead, I have a question," the cook pulled himself closer to Zoro, directly gazed into his eyes. "Who was the first girl you slept with?" he asked as he replaced the wine cup in his hand with a lit cigarette.

The swordsman grunted, frowning, "I haven't slept with anyone."

The blond relaxed visibly, smiling, "Alright, me neither. Who was the first girl you kissed?" he asked again, a much innocent question this time.

"I haven't kissed any girl, cook, why are you asking me this?"

Sanji's eyes bulged slightly from shock, still grinning like a fool— a _drunken_ fool.

"Wait, wait, let me rephrase that question. Have you kissed anybody? Boy, girl, any living thing that might have come in contact with your divine lips?" This dickhead was sarcastic even in his intoxicated state of mind.

The swordsman rolled his eyes, frustrated and embarrassed, probably because the bastard was making such a big fucking deal about it.

"No," he answered.

The blond chuckled, with a deriving expression that Zoro wanted to smack off his face. Sanji took a profound wisp of smoke into his lungs before commenting, "You're surprisingly innocent."

Zoro rolled his eyes.

He didn't feel awful about the fact that he'd never smacked his lips against some girl, or anyone for that matter.

From an early age, all he had been interested in was becoming the best swordsman, exceeding this girl named Kuina, and training until his bones creaked like a bitch all day. He never had any time for trifle activities as love, or someone to submit all of his sexual urges and emotions to, hardly touched his own dick even after puberty had hit. He always believed that those things could wait until after his goal was achieved, because he could not allow anything to hinder him from the dream he and Kuina both shared.

"Sanji, I'm bored!" Luffy abandoned his controller to slouch over the blond's back, "Let's do something fun. Come on, Sanji. I'm bored."

Nami took a seat next to Sanji. "What are you guys talking about?" she asked with an inquisitive expression.

The dumb ass blond seemed awfully pleased that the woman had sat so close to him, leaning towards him with her large breasts spilling out of her shirt.

"My love, I was just telling marimo here about high school, back when I had a huge crush on you," he told her, candid and shameless. "I thought you were the most beautiful flower in school." The pervert's eyes were focused on her boobs and not her eyes.

 _What a cunt,_ Zoro thought.

"That's sweet, Sanji," she replied with a yawn, stretching out her thin arms above her head.

"It's nice playing video games with you guys again," Nami continued, her bare legs extended in front of her. "Since college classes and my part time job takes up every hour of the day, it's so rare to just sit back and relax."

"Oh, how's your modeling job lately, mademoiselle?"

"It's dreadful, but who can refuse _all_ that money," she grinned.

Sanji jumped on his feet and clasped his hands together, "I love it when you're passionate about money!"

 _More like being a greedy witch_ , the swordsman thought with a roll of his eyes.

"Say, Zoro, do you have a job?" the boy with a straw hat asked him while sprawled out on the floor, laying on his chest and elbows, his chin resting on his small palms.

"I-" the swordsman began without actually knowing what to say.

Right then, the drunken blond bastard (though he actually helped Zoro) turned on the radio and a jazzy tune filled up the room, consuming whatever Zoro might have wanted to say; and Luffy, forgetting his own question, jumped to his feet and danced around with Sanji. The two idiots, one intoxicated out of his mind, were shaking their bums, and the rest joined except for Zoro, who watched the group circle around each other, laughing and talking over the lively music humming into their brains.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"I actually remember that," the blond recalled, followed by a nervous laugh as though embarrassed by the memory.

"Yeah, you looked stupid," Zoro cracked a smile, or rather, a derisive smirk that couldn't be seen.

Sanji huffed in annoyance, growled, " _Asshole_ , you would've probably acted all shitfaced if _you_ were drunk."

"Too bad you'll never see me drunk, my tolerance is pretty high," he jested. Something about Sanji made him want to play around.

The cook paused, his light breath caught in his throat, "Pretty high, huh? Is that why you were blushing toward the end of the night?" He was teasing him, and Zoro could imagine a smirk on his rose colored lips, revealing a hint of his pearly white teeths, which was an anomaly as this cook had a cigarette in his mouth every time he saw him.

Zoro blinked a few times in surprise. He assumed that Sanji had forgotten everything that happened last night. "I don't know what you're talking about," he answered with a flat tone of voice.

"I'm having trouble remembering the whole thing, but I remember your cheeks and ears getting red when we were sitting on the couch. Everybody else had gone out to get some fresh air and snacks, but I had to stay back because I was too drunk and you didn't want to go. What were we talking about?"

Zoro internally groaned. When he was retelling the story, he had planned to skim over this part of the night, but Sanji was probing into that specific scene that he wanted to avoid telling.

After downing an entire bottle of Bacardi, a couple of beers, and some of the cook's fruity drinks, the swordsman admits that he had loosened up a bit, especially around this suave and flirty blond with his rosy cheeks and Baritone, smokey sound of his voice. Sanji had a gentle aura, which had a way of tapping into one's emotions, and Zoro had an easier time telling him about himself.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"I didn't ask you this before but what were you doing that night, and why did you decide to help me?"

The conversation began with Zoro's question, because as much as Sanji proved himself to be trustworthy, it was still strange to think that someone was kind enough to walk around that shady, red light district that he was in, and help Zoro when he was shot and unconscious on the ground. Perhaps if he had been shot in the middle of a crowd, people would've cared enough to check up on him, but in the narrow and dingy street, it would be more reasonable to walk faster at the sight of an unconscious body. Especially in a dangerous neighborhood.

What was Sanji even doing there in the first place?

From the looks of it, the blond is more than well-off. He owns a restaurant at the age of nineteen. He wears expensive suits by the looks of it, each piece probably costing him over a thousand dollars, and his house is beautiful and spacious. A wealthy man like him had no place in a neighborhood that he was in, when he happened to stumble across Zoro's unconscious body.

"Are you suspicious of me?" the blond asked him, taunting but serious.

The swordsman shook his head. Despite the cook's heightened athletic capabilities, which pars quite even with his own, he knew a kind man when he saw one and Sanji had no reason to be after his head. After all, they didn't know anything about one another.

"No," Zoro answered.

A silence lingered, as the cook fiddled with the cigarette hanging low on his lips. Despite how drunk he was, he was keeping his composure and formulating his thoughts like a sober person would.

"Zoro, if I were to ask you the same exact question, about what you were doing there that night and how you ended up in that situation, would you answer me truthfully?" He was looking at me straight in the eye, unwaveringly, and piercing into his soul. "Whether you like my answer or not, I just happened to be the person to save you and when I saw how wounded you were, I took you to the hospital. They tried to search for your identity, but you didn't have any sort of ID, debit or credit cards. Just a bundle of cash. Since they didn't know who you were, they asked me if I can be your guardian and I agreed. That's all there is to it."

The swordsman felt that he was hiding something, but seeing how desperate the cook was trying to hide it, he lost the will to ask again. Also, if he pressed Sanji to answer, he was sure that he would try to do the same, and Zoro wasn't ready to be truthful yet.

He was still healing from his injuries… but could that be all?

Perhaps a part of him felt something he had never felt in his entire life, except for the times he spent with Kuina. A sense of normalcy, as though he was just a regular man with a group of friends to hang out with, and he wasn't so desensitized to brutalities like murder, blackmail, and torture. A feeling of warmth emanating from Sanji and his group of friends… If he were to be truthful, then and there, it would all end and the blond would inevitably kick him out of his house, whether he's healed or not from his injuries.

It was silly, but he wanted to hold onto this feeling for just a bit longer.

"I see," Zoro said, nothing more and nothing less.

Sanji seemed to be a bit frustrated and antsy, as he was clenching the butt of his cigarette and shaking his legs.

"Look Zoro, I'm not keeping you hostage. You are free to leave my house at will, and you are welcome to stay here as long as you like. As payment, you can do chores around here, and I'd already given the hospital the cash you had with you that night as payment so you don't owe me anything." His voice was quiet, as though these words were forced and void of any meaning.

The swordsman grunted, "I want to stay as long as I can, but realistically I can only stay until my injuries are healed. I have to go back to my life."

As vague as his explanation was, Sanji didn't say anything. HIs solemn expression gave his face a mature appearance; and as red as he was, he appeared as though he had come out of a poem, working through tragedies or some shit with those deep blue eyes of his, aquiline nose, and a shapely bow sitting at the top of his rose colored lips.

Zoo could not help but find him beautiful.

"You told me that you've never slept with or kissed anybody, but have you fallen in love then?" the blond asked him, a sudden change of topic. The swordsman wondered what went through his mind, past his aloof expressions, for him to switch from one subject to another so fluidly.

The only person he had ever truly loved came to his mind. "I don't know if I loved her romantically, but there was a girl named Kuina. When I was twelve years old, she was my only friend and she's the reason why I'm still alive."

That caught the cook's interest, and Zoro could tell as Sanji literally turned his whole body to face him with a fat smirk on his face.

"Oh ho? You saving up your virginity for her or something? You're surprisingly cute, past your rough and edgy scene boy phase you're going through," Sanji cooed, causing Zoro to instinctively roll his eyes.

"No, you annoying bastard," he said with a low growl, annoyance flaring up so quickly despite the fact that he's known for his emotionless and stoic expressions in the organization. Something about Sanji made him more mushy and jam packed with emotions. "I wasn't romantically involved with her, we just learned about swordsmanship side by side and she always beat me no matter how much I trained."

The memories flooded in about a little girl with a short, dark blue hair and a condescending look on her face whenever she wielded a sword. She knew how skilled she was, as she was a child prodigy in swordsmanship, the best the organization has ever seen at the time. Now, of course, Zoro had exceeded her abilities after training like hell, though he can't verify as she died as quickly as they met.

Sanji cackled, "For some reason I can't imagine you losing to a little girl."

"I wasn't always this strong."

The blond took out another cigarette out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. He smoked one after the other as though he couldn't give a shit if his lungs gave out on him, though it was the same with Zoro who drank an inhumane amount of alcohol without a care about his liver. They were both men who lived for the moment, smoked and drank simply because they liked enjoying themselves.

After taking a long draw out of his cigarette, inhaling as though it was his last breath on earth, he glanced at the green haired man. "So what? What happened? She fueled your desire to be the best swordsman because she was better than you? Now, let's see… since you said you guys weren't romantically involved and you used 'was' to describe her as a friend, I'm guessing something happened that separated the two of you. What caused that separation?"

If Zoro had been more of an expressive person, his mouth would have literally dropped from the sheer unexpected response from the cook. He was able to connect the dots so easily, despite the fact that Zoro had spoken so little.

He nodded, "Uh… yeah, you are right. She died when we were twelve from falling down the stairs."

Whenever he spoke of how she died, he chuckled because it was so ordinary. There was no murder and not a single drop of blood drawn, which is how everybody expected their own deaths to be at the organization. Everybody prepared from the minute they set their foot into the organization to die in a gory and torturous manner, yet Kuina died from a slip of her footing. Though it had been a death, it was the most peaceful way one could've left from that organization.

Though he had expected more of a response, Sanji remained silent, as though death was a familiar topic to him and it did not need a fabricated response of 'I'm sorry's.

For a few minutes, they comfortably lingered in the silence that stood between them.

In the quiet space, the swordsman thought about Kuina and the organization that held him bound like shackles around his ankles. He wanted freedom, of course, and he was willing to go to extreme lengths to earn it by climbing to the highest rank. The only problem was, even if he managed to free himself, he would have to figure out how to claim an identify. There was no proof that he existed anywhere in this world. No ID, debit or credit cards, passport, or even a birth certificate. He was an empty existence, as intangible as air or people's souls, existing but without any evidence.

Breaking his thoughts and the silence surrounding them, the blond peeked in with another question. "Does that mean you're interested in women, marimo?"

 _Is this what normal men talk about?_

Even though he's never had a normal conversation outside of assassination strategies since Kuina's death, other than simple exchanges of "what are you eating" with Kaku and some other members who had similar ranks as him, he had an inkling that this wasn't it.

 _Why does this idiot keep asking me about love and shit?_

With a tinge of annoyance, the swordsman said, "I don't care about shit like that," though he meant it more so toward the topic surrounding Sanji's relentless questions.

"Oh?" the blond raised the tone of his voice, very noticeably and dramatically, as if it was some top secret information that he had managed to lay his fingers on. His eyebrow, a curly freak of nature, raised like a question mark.

"Hm, does that mean you might be interested in me?" he asked, each word dripping with seduction and charisma as sweet as a raw honeycomb.

From his whispering raspy voice, the swordsman felt something he had never felt before, a trickling sensation that trailed its way down his spine, wrapping its grasp around his piqued arousal. It was not only _what_ the cook had said but _how_ he said it that sent the green haired man in a frenzy, ruffled with embarrassment.

"Wha—" he stuttered, trying to find words that would hide a rising panic that was beginning to flush his face with a color similar to Sanji's lips.

Was he drunk? he wondered.

Is that why he suddenly found himself wanting to touch the blond, kiss him the way he never wanted to with anybody in the past, and fuck him senseless.

 _Woah_...

Zoro caught himself in the midst of his thoughts, pulling himself back to the reality sitting so comfortably next to him, watching the swordsman's every move. If they had a second longer, Zoro was sure that he would've not restrained himself from jumping on the cook and pulling his clothes off.

"We're back!"

Luffy shouted as loud as if he were speaking to a microphone when the rest of the group entered their home, causing the two men caught in their game of allure and suffocated arousals to jump up with widened eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

"So…" the blond drawled his words out, making the situation much worse than it could have been.

The way Zoro had described the night was as succinct and to the point as possible, leaving out the details of them almost jumping each others' bones and the sexual innuendos hidden behind the cook's words. The aura of their masculine pheromones lingering in the air, even after the rest of the group had walked in and hung around them.

Most unexpectedly, the blond asked, "What did you think about that then?"

Though the swordsman couldn't make out the cook's face in the surrounding darkness, he could imagine the scarlet streak across his pale and ivory canvas. Perhaps that's how he felt himself or he wanted to see the cook like that: humiliated and embarrassed, spread out in front of him, screaming Zoro's name like a curse word with matted blond hair covered in sweat and cum…

 _What the hell is wrong with me?_ the swordsman gave himself a mental slap.

It wasn't like he had ever been interested in anybody before and he hardly masturbated, as he considered it a form of training to discipline himself. When the guys in his organization often pulled out their cell phones to watch porn, Zoro hardly gave it a glance because it didn't interest him like it did with other men. He never had the urge to sneak a peek at a woman's naked body, nor men's, and he had never been aroused at the thought of fucking anybody.

 _Not until I met Sanji._

The blond was an enigma.

A fiery, ass-kicking cook who decided that using his feet was enough for a fight—which, Zoro confirms, is undeniably true—and he was an annoying womanizer melting at the slightest touch or even a look from a woman. Then there was another side to him that was a bit unfamiliar to Zoro, the side that allowed the dangerous swordsman into his home to treat his wounds, an _assassin_ lying on his back in the middle of a red light district alleyway.

A curious work of fate, or perhaps it wasn't since he still didn't know why Sanji was there that night.

Now the same blond who stood in front of him was asking him what he thought about last night, and if Zoro was honest he would tell him that it was one of the greatest nights he had ever had, but he wasn't the type to be _that_ frank with his emotions.

"I had fun," he responded in a stoic tone of voice, giving nothing away.

It was a force of habit to hide and tuck his emotions away. In the organization, revealing any sort of emotions was a sign of weakness, and if any of those motherfuckers smelled anything close to a weakness they would tear you apart without a second to lose, leaving you purposefully alive to rot away slowly and painfully until death finally comes to alleviate you.

It wasn't because he didn't trust the blond who had saved his life.

"Well," the cook sounded flustered, almost huffing that word with the exhale of the smoke from his cigarette, which Zoro couldn't see but smelt once it landed on his face.

"I'm talking more specifically about…" he trailed off, leaving Zoro more confused than ever. _Spit it out!_ he wanted to say. "My question… do you remember?"

 _Does that mean you might be interested in me?_ Sanji's voice clamored in his head, a voice of seduction and temptation, alongside his own heartbeat pounding louder than usual.

"Yeah," Zoro responded with hesitance, confused by where the blond was going by this. "So what?"

Finally, the blond's patience obviously thinned as he annoyedly snapped, "What the fuck do you think, you damn retard? I'm asking whether you're interested in me!"

A foul mouthed, impatient, hot-tempered cook who spat fire and cooked with the fiery passion in his veins.

 _Hold up. I like this guy?_ Zoro groaned inwardly, coming across this realization rather slowly. _I've only known him for how many days now?_ It wasn't true, he convinced himself. He had just stepped outside of a vicious and every-man-for-himself type of environment so his expectations were low and his heart was probably being stirred at any sign of kindness thrown at him.

It was too early to say.

Something was off, because as kind as Sanji had shown himself to be, Zoro didn't reveal anything about himself, so the blond shouldn't have any sort of attraction or attachment toward him.

Right? Was he just being suspicious again?

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that, I just thought we connected for the few days we've known each other." He sighed heavily, "I've never met anybody I could spar so evenly with, and our conversations… we just flow, it feels easy and open. I've never met someone like you."

Then Zoro understood.

Sanji was just like him, desolate in the world they were thrusted into and without anybody to truly rely on, as no one actually understood. It was a surprise, given that the blond had so many friends, really good people, surrounding him yet he still felt the way Zoro did.

Perhaps Zoro's heart wasn't stirred by the fact that Sanji was the first person to show him kindness but because it was _Sanji_ , who was kind and ass-kicking and happened to come across his dying body that night.

A work of fate, something that Zoro had always believed in but never truly, much like religious individuals who went to church to prove their faith that they actually lacked; Sanji wanted to make him believe.

"I don't know," Zoro told him truthfully, because as little as they've known one another he did trust Sanji. "We haven't known each other for long enough and I'm actually new at this whole thing."

"I know," the blond told him. "You told me yesterday, remember?"

Zoro nodded, forgetting that the blond couldn't see him, "There are things that I haven't told you and I don't think I ever will. It's not because I don't trust you but there are other reasons."

 _It's to protect you_ , he wanted to say.

"Even if I am attracted to you, there's nothing I could do because eventually I have to leave."

Even if they were fucking soulmates reincarnated into this world, universe after universe, to meet again, Zoro knew he couldn't stay. He felt indebted to this man who saved his life when he didn't have to and had all the freedom in the world to leave him behind to die. So, Zoro felt the need to leave and return to the organization before they notice his disappearance.

 _I can't risk getting him killed_.

"But…" the blond began to speak, trying to refute the swordsman's argument that didn't make any logical sense. "Don't you feel it? This work of fate, as if it's connecting us?"

Zoro's chest began to throb as he remembered his conversations with Kuina.

" _Zoro, don't you think even us, the abandoned children who've been raised by violence, deserve something more?" the little girl buried in his memories spoke, lying next to him after a spar, and Zoro who was nine years old at the time remembers seeing the reflection of the full moon on the pool of her dark blue hair._

 _He didn't understand much at the time because he hadn't seen much of the world yet. She was older than him by three years, and she's seen the world outside of the training academy and the orphanage._

" _What do you mean 'more,' Kuina? What more is there?" he asked, wondering whether there could be any other path than the one he was placed on, the road to become an assassin._

 _She didn't respond to his question, or perhaps she did but he wasn't sure. "I feel bad for you and the others here, waiting to kill and to be killed, unable to find your fate and the souls that are connected to yours."_

" _This is my fate. Our fate, Kuina. There's nothing we can do about it but accept that fact."_

" _I hope that someday you'll see things differently, Zoro."_

Her voice reverberated in his head like a temple bell, reminding him that he is exactly where he's supposed to be with Sanji.

"I do," he told the blond in a whisper, scared that things will change and he will someday plunge into an unknown path away from everything he knows. But he felt that the pain in his heart could only be alleviated if he said these words and Kuina would be proud of him.

They remained in the silence for the rest of their time in the balcony until Sanji spoke in a low, guttural voice which was probably a sign that he wore his throat out from smoking too many cigarettes in a row.

"Let's go back inside and sleep."

As they shifted their bodies toward the door, the light flickered on and though Zoro had a difficult time adjusting his eyes to the sudden illumination, he saw a glint of tears in the corner of the blond's visible eye.

He wondered what made Sanji so sad.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Ne, Sanji, wake up and make me some food!"

With a sharp pain jolting horizontally across his head, Zoro woke up to the sound of Luffy's boisterous and whiny voice.

For a few seconds he wondered where he was, as everything appeared unfamiliar; and typically this would've caused him to be alert and expect the worst, but at the sight of Luffy shaking the blond man awake from his slumber relaxed him.

It was strange to wake up in a house as spacious and aesthetically pleasing as Sanji's, since Zoro was used to waking up on a bunk bed that did not even have a mattress. The men in his quarters had a habit of pawning off mattresses for other goodies like drugs, weapons, and even a night out away from their duties; strangely, a mattress was as precious as a ramen packet in prison. It could earn them basically anything, but most chose temporary freedom. Zoro had the choice to get a mattress, as he was ranked rather high in the organization, but because his back had gotten used to the wooden panel he chose to remain mattress-less.

So waking up on the floor was nothing new for him.

With a groan, the blond woke up to Luffy's stirs and mumbled some words that resembled "shit head."

Zoro couldn't help but notice his usually silky blond hair that slicked naturally over his one eye was puffed up like a bird's nest and revealed his other eye. He couldn't hold back his smirk when he noticed that both of his eyebrows were curly and pointing in the same direction.

"What are you laughing about, Zoro?" Ace asked him, approaching them without a shirt on and his shorts barely hanging onto his waist.

Again, it wasn't something he tried to notice but he was in some sense checking Ace out, despite the fact that he was used to men without any clothes on as he was only surrounded by men at the organization. Ace had the perfect figure, not too lean or bulky, leaving him finely muscular. His abs were definitely noticeable but they weren't obnoxiously bulging out, just simple lines leading down to his happy trail, which was also noticeable due to his shorts hanging so low on his waist…

Zoro's attention snapped up to meet the raven haired man's eyes,

"Just the blond's eyebrows," he simply remarked, unafraid of Sanji's wrath.

The blond growled and hurriedly brushed his hair with his fingers to cover his eye, well knowing what the green haired man was laughing about.

"Bastard, you were making fun of my eyebrows."

And just like that, the two of them were back to normal as though last night's events had never transpired.

"It's not my fault that you have some freak of nature, genetic defect," he snorted, adding so much oil to the already ignited, scorching fire.

It was obvious that Sanji was _not_ a morning person because typically he would've resorted to a sassy remark before swinging his ironlike leg to throw Zoro across the living room space, causing his already throbbing head to ache even more.

"Agh—" he spat out as his body pathetically gave out from the sudden impact, and partly because he was still injured.

"Sanji!" Nami bursted into the room after hearing them making a racket, and she immediately noticed the swordsman's slumped body with blood oozing out of his bullet wound. "He's bleeding!" she exclaimed, with a panicked voice.

As though the morning spell had been broken, Sanji's eyes flickered back to his regular self and he quickly rushed to Zoro's side.

"Shit, I forgot."

All four of them hovered over Zoro's slumped body and he felt the unbearable pity from their looks prickling his skin. He placed his palm over his wound, which definitely was reopened, and pressed it to stop the blood loss. This was something that was common knowledge to him, though this was his first time being shot.

"I'm fine, it'll close back up soon," he told them with a sigh. This pity wasn't needed.

Though it pained him, he tried to stand up to prove his point and get them off his back.

"Zoro, sit down." Most surprisingly, it was Luffy who demanded this in a serious tone of voice that Zoro would've never expected to hear from a man who seemed to have the heart of a child, and even more surprisingly he found himself unable to disobey those demands.

He sat back down.

"Call Chopper, Sanji," Luffy continued to speak in the tone of voice that sent everybody to do as told.

The blond stood up to find his iPhone on the kitchen table, and the entire time he was punching in numbers he appeared deadpan, without a twitch in the corner of his lips or any sort of indication that he was thinking or feeling anything. He would've been as calculative as Kaku if he had been part of the organization, though he doubted Sanji would be as cold and ruthless as Kaku.

Zoro wondered what was going on in his head.

"We should do something about the blood," Nami told the raven haired brothers, reaching for the first aid kit at the top of the bookshelf, which was actually right next to where Zoro had landed.

In the background, Sanji was speaking to this 'Chopper' person on the phone. "Hey, Chopper, sorry to wake you up, but we need your help…"

"I don't think I can do this," Nami told them with a grimace on her face, seeing the bullet wound that was oozing out blood when Ace unwrapped the bandages.

Zoro could understand why.

The wound was puckered like a butthole except it wasn't such a pretty sight being that it was all sorts of colors: purple all around, crimson red with blood, and the flaps of the skin being orangish yellow. If he wasn't so used to seeing injuries, he would've grimaced himself.

"I'll wrap the bandage around him, but it'll just hold until Chopper comes," Ace stepped in with the bandages in hand and helped Zoro take his shirt off.

Sanji's voice was ringing in his head as the swordsman closed his eyes. "See you soon, Chopper."

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

"Sanji, are you out of your mind! Why would you kick someone with a serious bullet wound, not to mention that it happened only a few days ago!" The little kid who seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen with disheveled brown hair and round eyes came in to scream his head off at the blond haired man.

 _Is he a doctor?_ Zoro questioned in his head, as he expected someone with a white trench coat and much older to arrive.

"I knew I should've kept him at the hospital but you insisted that you bring him here!" the little kid continued to ramble, making his way over to the swordsman's slumped body.

 _He's the one who treated me? Is he even old enough to be in college?_

"Hi," the kid named Chopper greeted him with a little smile that would have melted anybody with a cold heart, with an exception of Kaku of course. That man was on a whole other level.

"I'm going to anesthetize you so I can stitch you back up. Before that though I have to make sure you don't get infected, and it's going to hurt a lot. I hope you can handle pain. It'll be over quickly though, so don't worry," he reassured Zoro, and it really would've been effective if the swordsman had never been in such a situation before. Too bad he's had way more serious injuries than this with doctors that couldn't give a shit about their patients.

It was a first, however, to have a kid doctor treat him with such kindness and care, as though Zoro was just a fragile little boy.

"Sorry Chopper, I was still half asleep when I did it," Sanji sheepishly responded to Chopper while scratching his bushy head.

Zoro rolled his eyes, "he just got upset because I made fun of his eyebrows."

The cook growled, sending shivers down the green haired man's spine. "Now I'm thinking it was well deserved for your shitty ass to be kicked all the way across the room."

"Sanji! Don't disturb the patient while he's getting treated!" Chopper scolded him again.

To Zoro's surprise, Sanji backed down rather easily as he mumbled another apology under his breath and walked away.

 _Huh, I wonder why he's only like that with me_ , Zoro wondered before wincing at the slight pain spreading from his wound, as Chopper was patting him with a cotton pad wet with a solution to clean his wounds.

"It'll only last for a few seconds," the kid whispered.

Being near Chopper gave him a feeling of reassurance and warmth enveloping him, similar to drinking a cup of hot chocolate. The kid was so goddamn cute with his wide eyes, disheveled brown hair, round nose, and rosy cheeks. He was usually the type of person to hate kids without a reason, not anymore than the fact that they're usually snot-nosed and self-absorbed, ignorant to consider anybody else but themselves like he used to when he was younger.

Chopper seemed different.

"Aren't you a little bit too young to be a full-fledged doctor?"

The kid appeared surprised by the innocent question, or the fact that Zoro was attempting to have a conversation with him in the first place.

"I am young but I am more than capable than most doctors out there. I have been taught by the nation's best of the best doctors since I was a child, and I already finished med school last year. I am still working with one of my teachers, who is also my guardian, but she trusts me enough for me to work on my own," Chopper confidently answered.

The swordsman nodded, as he understood that the kid in front of him was a prodigy, like himself and Kuina except it was with medical practices instead of swordsmanship.

"How did you get shot?" Chopper asked, and it was probably a way to distract Zoro from what he was doing to his nasty wound.

"I'm not too sure. It happened too quickly for me to know who it was."

The kid raised the tone of his voice, "So, you don't even know who did it?"

"No, but it was definitely a calculated plan," Zoro mentioned, trusting the kid enough to talk about his theories of that night. "They knew exactly who I was and what I was capable of, or else there wouldn't have been two men, one capable of martial arts and the other capable of sniping…"

As he was saying these words out loud, it occurred to him that there weren't many average people in the world who were able to take him down so easily, and the two men (or women) who attacked him weren't normal! One shot him from such a long distance away, which Zoro knew because of his intuitive sense that had been trained for many years at the organization; this meant that the sniper was especially skilled, perhaps an assassin like himself. The other one was able to disguise his presence from Zoro's keen senses and attacked him with such raw power that equaled his own.

 _Why didn't I think of this before?_

All of a sudden he felt vulnerable. If they were as skilled as Zoro believed them to be, they knew that he was alive. The sniper had missed his vital organs on purpose and they were still after him.

 _Where did they go? Why did they leave me there? Why attack me just to keep me alive? What did Sanji see?_

And the most important question: _Who are they?_

Zoro had trailed off, as all these thoughts suddenly dawned upon him like a canon, and his stomach began to hurt more than the bullet wound that Chopper was stitching back up.

"What's wrong?" the kid asked with urgency in his voice, thinking that Zoro was experiencing some sort of physical pain.

"I'm fine," he answered in a stoic tone of voice, careful from giving anything away.

There were a few possibilities that he didn't want to stomach, but he _had_ to as he was trained to consider all possibilities, even the ones that he didn't want to be true.

First possibility, and the easiest to swallow, was that there was another organization or possibly the government targeting individuals from his organization, meaning that he was only shot because he had a high ranking; and most likely, if this was true, then Kaku would've been targeted as well. The only problem was that he was left alive. He highly doubted that this was an accident. If the sniper had, by some fluke, missed his vital organs accidentally, then his partner would've definitely checked his pulse to see if he was still alive since he was right next to Zoro anyways.

If this theory was true then he would've definitely finished the swordsman off.

 _There's no way professional killer would make such a huge mistake like that_.

No, him being alive wasn't a mistake.

The second possibility, one he didn't want to consider but it was definitely more than probable, was that his own organization wanted to kill him. However, if that was true then they wouldn't have left him alive either. Perhaps they were trying to test him, though Zoro had no clue why they would and he'd never heard about anything like this in the past, but it would explain how he was taken down so easily. Only the organization knew of his abilities and it was possible that they purposely sent a sniper and someone who could disguise their presence.

He didn't even want to consider the third possibility but he _had_ to because even the most unexpected had to be expected. The disguised presence who had managed to land a solid hit, one that was hard as steel, resembled Sanji's legs.

 _But why would that shitty cook want to attack me?_ he wondered.

Zoro recalled a memory from the strip club, the one Kaku and he attended right before he was shot. In the bathroom where he was taking a piss, though it was a fleeting moment that he deemed as insignificant in his mind, he remembers seeing the blond cook shouting at the top of his lungs and wearing an odd double-breasted suit that seemed too formal for a shitty place they were in.

Now, was it a coincidence that Sanji happened to be in the same club and the same alleyway Zoro was in?

Before that night, however, he had never seen the cook. That would mean the possibility was even lower than the other two, as Sanji wasn't familiar with his abilities, he had no reason to kill Zoro or attempt to kill him just to leave him alive, and most importantly why the hell would he take Zoro in to help him recuperate.

If Sanji was a kidnapper who had housed him, using the excuse of helping him recover, then he would've been watching Zoro like a hawk; instead, he left many opportunities for Zoro to simply leave.

 _This doesn't make sense_.

Of course it didn't, he countered his own thoughts. This was just a probability so he wouldn't be caught off guard.

"All finished," Chopper cut off his stream of thoughts, and when Zoro looked down to see his wounds it was hidden behind a professionally wrapped bandage.

"As a reward, here you go."

Zoro stared at the pink lollipop Chopper was handing him with a raised eyebrow, thinking how ludicrous this situation was but simultaneously reaching out to take it from him.

Who could reject a cute kid like this? he thought, despite the fact that sucking on a lollipop would destroy the terrifying, demonic image his underlings had of him.

 _Cotton candy flavor…_

"Oi, are you good?" the blond called out from the kitchen, and Zoro suddenly noticed the delicious aroma straying over to where he and Chopper sat.

Sanji was wearing a frilly, laced, pink apron; one that he imagined only girls would like.

Zoro inwardly cringed, _if I was taken down by an idiot cook like this then I deserve to die_.

"Yeah, but I bet you aren't happy to hear it," he shot at Sanji, testing the waters.

The blond was quick to fire back, without any hint of hesitance, "Hell no." He almost sang these words.

Zoro smirked.

He couldn't help but to relax once more with the good-natured jokes swinging back and forth between them. He also couldn't help but notice the blond's backside, the lean curve of his spine that led to his strong muscular butt, with legs that were longer than anybody's' he'd ever seen and probably strong enough to snap someone else in half.

It was no wonder that he was so allured by the cook. Zoro always liked those who were strong, and the blond was attractive and had a personality that matched his. What a perfect fit!

 _Focus, Zoro!_ he told himself.

The problem seemed more dire than expected, as the likelihood of his assailants knowing that he was still alive was high and they were most likely coming back to finish the job. It was dangerous for him to leave Sanji's home as they could easily spot him, but it was also dangerous to stay as that could put everybody in danger, even Sanji despite him being a competent fighter.

He couldn't do this alone. He had to find someone whom he could trust.

The only problem was… he didn't have anybody.

He had many partners in the past, like Kaku, but none of them were worthy of his trust. All of them had been thoroughly desensitized since childhood and only cared about themselves, which was true for him as well; and perhaps as children they were friendly enough to converse freely and hang out, but now those same children learned to guard themselves against a world they saw as hostile, a threat that could crush them at any time.

It was true that the story between every assassin differed, but all of them shared one thing in common, and it was that their humanity has been profoundly and utterly battered, enough to leave them as soulless monsters.

"Food is ready, you shitheads and my lovely Nami-san!" the cook announced, which had the domino effect of Luffy tackling Ace in excitement and the two brothers falling on top of Chopper, who yelped in response.

Zoro sighed, putting a hold to his dilemma.

He decided that this was a problem for his later self.

For now, he followed his stomach that seemed too eager to pull him toward Sanji's deliciously cooked food.

[=]-[=]-[=]-[=]

As the day dwindled down they left one by one, leaving Sanji and Zoro alone to feel the weight of last night's events that have transpired between them.

It would've been awkward for any normal people, but to say that they were the furthest thing from _normal_ was an understatement.

"So, when are you going to work, cook? You've been just sitting home to take care of me?" the green haired man asked as Sanji was replacing the bandages with cleaner ones, as instructed by Chopper.

When the cool tips of his fingers grazed against his tanned, muscular skin, he shuddered from the touch. It was an unfamiliar feeling to be touched so gently by someone else.

"Well, that's the perk from being the owner of the place. I can go in whenever and I trust the chefs to do their jobs; they were trained by my old man after all," he responded, short and to the point, not taking the bait of Zoro teasing him.

"As simple as that, huh."

"Yeah. You're right though, I think I should go in soon to check up on the chefs. The longer I'm gone, the shittier the food gets," he snorted, condescendingly if that was even possible.

Zoro continued with his stream of questions, "So Chopper is a doctor, you're a chef, and Nami said that she's a meteorologist—"

"The best one in the city," Sanji cuts him off with a smirk, obviously proud of Nami's achievements.

Zoro ignored him and continued, "Then what does Luffy and Ace do? Do they even work?"

For some reason Zoro couldn't picture them in any typical work settings, imagining Luffy's tendency to be impulsive with his actions and childlike with his words; these traits were favorable to get along with others but not so much at work, or so he would imagine since he never worked a real job outside of his organization. Ace, on the other hand, would have been perfectly normal if he didn't have narcolepsy, the tendency to randomly fall asleep. It was a rare and bizarre case, but Ace told him that it never occurred in moments that were serious, when his adrenaline is all fired up and his head is pumped with blood.

"Uh—I mean, they do but it's not like an office job…" Sanji told him, hesitance hinged at the end of his sentence. "They are both good at fighting so they teach others."

Zoro could see that the blond wasn't a good liar, as he stuttered in the beginning of his sentence and guilt was written all over his face.

"What are you hiding?" he asked, suspicion spiked in his veins.

He didn't think there was anything to hide behind his innocent question, but he was clearly wrong.

Sanji appeared flustered and Zoro could see every sweat drop finding a trail down his temples, veins in his hands as they were wrapping the bandages, and the tint of redness flaring up in his cheekbones. That's how close they were. He could even smell him. The scent of smoke, spices, and coffee. He smelled so damn good that the swordsman had an urge to lick it off of him.

 _Fuck._

Clearly the libido he has been repressing for all these years were finally roaring into motion, overwhelming him in waves of inexpressible urges and raw desire.

The cook gave a little cough, "You ask a lot of questions for someone who refuses to answer them himself."

In response, the swordsman raised his eyebrow, implying with a simple look that Sanji was just beating around the bush and turning the spotlight on Zoro because he didn't want to answer the question.

The thing he liked about the cook the most was that he looked at Zoro without any sign of wavering.

Even if he was under pressure and feeling uncomfortable under the scrutinizing eyes of Zoro's, the cook's gaze was in the midst of the flame and a plunge into the ocean, as those dark blue orbs were challenging him to the core of his being. There weren't many people out there who could come out unscathed from such a declaration of war against Zoro, but he fully believed that Sanji was not only capable of coming out alive but with a cigarette in his bloodied hand, an apathetic look on his face as if to say that hell in itself wasn't hot enough for him.

With a harsh drag from his cigarette, Sanji finally came clean with a straightforward response. "Even if I told you the truth, you wouldn't believe me."

Zoro scoffed, "Try me, cook."

"Fine," he exclaimed, pausing for a few seconds before taking a huge breath. Slowly, he started to speak in his alto and velvety tone of voice. "They are part of an underground and fully _illegal_ ring for martial artists, and they get rewarded from winning fights and doing favors for some elites, though they only do it for people they like. They are actually pretty famous among the underground mobs, important people who hold the world together, like the government."

The swordsman blinked a few times, gathering enough sense to realize that perhaps he wasn't the only abnormal person here.

Sanji rolled his eyes, "See, I told you. You don't believe me."

It wasn't that Zoro didn't believe Sanji's story. He was just bewildered and found himself unable, or didn't think he had the capabilities, to believe that they were just as weird or unusual as he was, different from the rest of the world. A bunch of misfits.

As though a binding spell had been broken, Zoro began to laugh.

Sanji scoffed, obviously annoyed by the swordsman's response. "You don't have to find it that funny. You were literally lying in your own blood the other night, I don't think what I'm telling you is that far fetched from your own life."

The swordsman grinned, thinking: _If only this cook knew_.

"I believe you," he told the blond.

Sanji's eyes lit up, an obvious relief passing through him as his body visibly relaxed. "You should, mosshead, because I'm telling you nothing but the truth. But one more thing though," he smirked, a look Zoro himself was quite familiar with as it resembled the feeling right before diving into a fight, one filled with excitement and full of surprises.

"I'm also part of it."

A chill traveled its way down Zoro's spine and abdomen, sending a delicious thrill into places he'd never paid attention to, and his heart, usually rhythmic in its beat, began to stir like crazy.

He should've known.

Very few people could fight him the way Sanji did and he must have known instinctively that Sanji was as fucked up as he is when he felt something between them that he had never felt with anybody else before.

It also explained the house, a huge place that required a lot of money, and the fact that he was able to take leisure vacations so freely like he had retired already. The fact that he was an owner of a restaurant vaguely, faintly, explained how he was doing so well, but this _really_ explained it.

The blond had already finished wrapping the fresh and clean bandages around Zoro and he was leaning against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one bent upward to support his elbow.

As expected, he took out a cigarette and placed it between his teeth.

"The night that I found you, I was actually at the underground ring. That area is known to be untouched by the authorities since the police officers are bought off by some of the big names. I was making my way back to the hotel from a fight I had that night with some loser named Buggy when I saw you in the alleyway, lying there in a pool of red."

If this story was true then Sanji would no longer be a suspect, which makes sense because why would someone attack him just to bring him back, heal his wounds and keep him around?

"Now that I shared my secret, you have to tell me yours."

An alluring piece of shit who didn't even know how attractive he was; and now, knowing that he is also a badass who actually can and does kick ass, many asses in fact, Zoro felt himself more and more drawn to this man named Sanji.

A mysterious blond who, out of anybody else in the world made up of millions of people, happened to be in that alleyway as if by fate and took him in. He could not lie to himself that he didn't feel it, the magnetic pull from the blond, a terrifying feeling that could change everything.

The possibility to destroy him.

A face of apathy, in contrast to the inner turmoil that Zoro felt, as the blond softly blew out rings of smoke.

"Well?" he asked again

Zoro decided that it was time, throwing away all of his past suspicions and doubts, to trust this man in front of him and tell him the truth.

As the swordsman was a man of little hesitance once he makes up his mind and heart, he looked into the dark blue orb of Sanji's eye and told him the truth.

"I'm an assassin," he answered; and though, he had expected there to be fear from the other man, he again was surprised by Sanji's responses, which was to say that there weren't any at all.

The cook raised his curly brow, which resembled the fibonacci sequence and probably held all the mysteries of this universe.

"So—" he drawled out. "You killed people?"

Zoro nodded, grimacing from the question, knowing that the connotations behind death was more severe to others than to the swordsman or anybody else in the organization.

To him, it was more like if you've lived a shitty life, enough that there are people after your neck, then you probably deserve to die. He thought of himself as the blade dropping on those who were going to be executed anyways, as he neither sadistically enjoyed the act of killing or seeing the life leave the person's eyes, though he enjoyed fighting and the adrenaline rush behind a mission. He knew an average person would not, could not, see it the way he did.

Sanji, though, was not an average person.

With a shrug, he said, "Cool."

It was as though Zoro had just told him he eats cereal for breakfast or that his favorite color is green, something _that_ mundane and not worthy of a proper response.

"Look, I don't know your story but I can't judge. I did a lot of shitty things in the past, but to say those things determine who I am isn't true. I think that's also true for you too, right?"

"Yeah."

Zoro had never wanted, or expected, anybody to understand his life or what he went through. But the fact that the blond so easily and effortlessly understood him gave him a feeling he had never felt in his life.

Perhaps he had felt it with Kuina, but that had been so long ago.

"Cook, the reason why I didn't want to tell you this is because I don't know who my attackers were that night and I was afraid that they would attack you too if you know my secret. I don't have anybody whom I could trust, so I'd been using your place to hide," he told him truthfully, sheepishly.

He might as well have said: _I was just using you_ _and I don't got a fucking plan._

Sanji, to his surprise even though it really shouldn't be a surprise anymore, suddenly grinned and leaned forward. With the blond suddenly so close to his face, he could smell the cigarette on his breath overwhelming his senses.

"Then let's find those motherfuckers before they find us."

* * *

 **AN** : I just suddenly thought to myself that I should get the plot rolling :)


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